


Life’s for the Living (And the Things in Between)

by SalParadiseLost



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Feels, Bonding, Brodinsons, Brotherly Affection, Brotherly Angst, Family Feels, Gen, Ghost hugs, Ghosts, Horror, Hurt Loki (Marvel), Hurt Thor (Marvel), Hurt/Comfort, Loki & Peter Parker Friendship, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Loki of Sassgard, Monsters, Or rather Horror-adjacent, Peter Parker is Happy to Be There, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Protective Loki (Marvel), Protective Thor (Marvel), Reunions, Rituals, Runes, Something Going Bump in the Night, Team Bonding, The Avengers Going on an Adventure, There's more hugs than I intended in this story, They are trying to be good bros, They will get their hugs, Thor Needs a Hug (Marvel), Yes beta we die like Loki, but I am well-known for kicking canon into the sun, i will never not tag that, this story is not canon compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:55:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 62,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26864020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SalParadiseLost/pseuds/SalParadiseLost
Summary: The Avengers get called in to help with a series of disappearances in Norway that seem to be connected to an old Norse legend. Thor has been shattered by Ragnarok, but he goes on the mission to get away from the memories that haunt him in New Asgard. Instead of a reprieve though, he finds himself facing his ghosts more than ever, especially once one of them begins to sound suspiciously like his brother.Aka Thor is haunted, first by Loki, and later by a much less friendly ghost.**2020 Halloween Special**
Relationships: Loki & Peter Parker, Loki & Thor (Marvel), Peter Parker & Thor
Comments: 126
Kudos: 287





	1. The Arrival

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone!
> 
> Thanks for stopping by on this story. I absolutely love spooky season and I'm excited to write something a little on the creepier side. Don't worry, it won't be too horror, but we sill have ghosts and monsters and all that fun stuff >:)
> 
> This is canon adjacent and fits somewhere in the beginnings of Infinity War. Ragnarok has happened and New Asgard is just settling on to Earth.
> 
> Special Thanks to Rayna (sundial-at-night) who graciously beta'd this fic, talked with me through its early versions, and provided unending support. You can visit my tumblr at [ SalParadiseLost ](https://salparadiselost.tumblr.com) where I post tumblr things and general writing musings.
> 
> (For anyone who's interested, I was also inspired by the Netflix movie, The Ritual)

Chapter 1: The Arrival

Norway was colder than Asgard.

At first, it hadn’t bothered Thor. He wasn’t one to complain about the cold. He had been hardened to it through months of camping in the vast forests of Vanaheim and Alfheim, sleeping under the stars with Loki, Sif, and the Warriors Three. At times, he found himself welcoming the cold because of the way it drew up those memories.

It was becoming clearer, though, that this wasn’t Asgard’s cold.

Thor had never thought he would ever consider a chill to be traitorous, but the wrongness of this winter set in like its frost on trees, slowly sinking into his bones. Every day proving to him more and more that Norway wasn’t Asgard. Every day reminding him that he wasn’t home, his family wasn’t here, he was alone, and they were…

Dead.

Everything was gone. Stolen from him and reduced to ruin.

Thor couldn’t help that he felt ruined with it too.

“Um, excuse me.” A small voice came from his right side, startling him out of his thoughts. He blinked down, meeting eyes with Tony’s spider-child. The boy only gave him a hesitant but genuine smile. “I don’t think I introduced myself. I’m Peter Parker.” He held his hand out.

It took Thor a second to remember the Midgardian custom of shaking hands, but then graciously grasped Peter’s in his own.

Around them, the Quinjet shook and rumbled. Natasha piloted the jet with Tony in the co-pilot seat, trying to annoy her with increasingly scandalous double entendres. Nat, for her part, kept an impressively straight face, though her smile occasionally quirked at the corner.

Stark had said that the flight would take about three hours, so they should be landing soon.

“Hello Peter, I am Thor, son of Odin.” He almost said ‘of Asgard’ but he couldn’t bring himself to yet. It was too early and too incredibly distant.

The boy’s smile widened, his eyes sparkling. Then he started talking faster than Thor thought physically possible. “This is so cool. You’re so cool. I saw you on TV and all that crazy stuff with the lightning and I think it’s awesome. You’re like an original Avenger! I want to become an Avenger too. Mr. Stark is training me, that’s why I’m on this mission. He says it’s going to be pretty low-key, but I still think it’s cool. Are there really going to be Asgardian ruins there?”

Thor blinked, taking a second to fully process all the words that had just poured from the boy’s mouth.

“Uh, well, we do not truly know if they are Aesir made, but I am hoping to identify them if they are.”

Thor had been hesitant to come when Nick Fury had contacted him about a cave etched in runes that could possibly be connected to Asgard. The hurt from the loss of his home was still raw, open wound, and if he was completely honest, runic identification had never been his strong suit. Loki had been the scholar and would have been more useful than Thor could ever hope for. But just thinking about Loki, how bright he shone and how that light had been snuffed out, made a familiar hurt ache inside him.

He knew that this mission would be painful, especially if the runes did prove to be of Asgard. They would only remind him of what he had lost, who was gone now, and all the things he couldn’t get back.

But there were rumours of people going missing, apparently being drawn to this cave and never emerging again. Nothing had been proven, not yet, at least, but it meant that he had to come, even if he would be mostly useless.

He had failed so many people, he couldn’t let himself fail anymore, especially if the reason was his own cowardice.

“Mr. Thor,” the boy’s spoke again, his eyebrows in a worried crease. Thor realised he must have been silent for too long. “Are you alright?”

The sudden urge to laugh suddenly bubbled in him, and he forced himself to tamp it down. He knew that if he did, his friends would only keep giving him looks. Looks that said they thought he would shatter if they pressed too hard.

And maybe he would, he wasn’t too sure anymore now.

With everything gone and broken, how does he even answer Peter’s question?

_ With a lie, of course. How else would you answer, you oaf?  _ said a voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Loki’s. Lying had always been Loki’s solution, a method to deflect and daze so that people couldn’t get too close. Thor could see the merit in that now.

Figures that it would take Loki being dead to finally listen to some of his advice.

“I’m fine, Spider-child. I was merely lost in thought.”

The boy nodded, and he gave Thor a soft, empathetic smile. “Yeah, I get like that too sometimes.” Peter looked away, his own memories flashing in his eyes. It made Thor ache to see someone so young look so haunted. “Music can help, though, I brought my iPod if you want to listen to something with me?”

Peter looked for something in his bag and pulled out a small, shiny rectangle that was apparently the aforementioned eye-pod. He met Thor’s eyes with a hopeful grin. “I can also show you how it works. I promise it’s easier than a toaster.”

Thor huffed a small laugh. Apparently, his propensity for destroying toasters had made it to the boy. He would have to be sure to get Stark back about that one later.

“Thank you, I would appreciate that,” he said, feeling something warm inside his light up when the boy began excitedly babbling and showing him various things on the lit-up rectangle.

He nodded along, not quite understanding everything, but he appreciated the distraction.

The memories still haunted him, standing on the edge of his mind like waiting phantoms. It would only be a matter of time before one of them reached forward to grab his hand.

But maybe this mission could be a way to get away from them, at least for a little bit. It could be something that would make him feel useful instead of like the broken creature he had become.

Maybe it would even make him feel a little bit more like a hero again?

Inside his head, the voice that might be Loki’s laughed, wicked and wily.

_ There’s my brother, always trying to be the hero. _

*****

The Quinjet landed in Nesna, a small town nestled in the heart of one of Norway’s great Northern forests. Pine trees rose as high as buildings and stood like darkened sentinels around the village. It reminded him startlingly of the forests on Alfheim and the great wildernesses that he and his brother used to use as a playground. How many times had they crashed through the woods, reckless with youth and their need to explore? It wasn’t uncommon for them to just disappear for weeks on end, vanishing into the mountains with only each other to rely on. Every time had nearly driven their mother mad, but also made pride sparkle in his father’s eye.

Thor couldn’t help but feel comforted and unsettled by the forest at the same time. The trees only seemed to make the memories encroach upon him more.

The Avengers disembarked from the Quinjet, each of them already dressed in casual clothing. Beside Thor, he could practically feel Peter vibrating in excitement.

The townspeople had gathered in a loose circle around the aircraft and were looking at them with curious, relieved faces. Some of the children were gaping with awe and pushing at each other to get a better look at the superheroes.

Thor’s eyes caught a little girl’s, and he gave her a small wave that sent her ducking behind her mother’s legs. Almost immediately, though, she was peering at him again with huge, round eyes.

If Loki was here, Thor was sure his brother would have flashed her a bit of magic, something ethereal and beautiful, just to get her to smile. He loved seeing wonder in a child’s eyes, and Thor ached when he thought that he would get to see his brother do that ever again.

Thor turned, forcing himself to face away from the children, and towards a town spokesman that was approaching them. He had told himself this mission would help him get away from those kinds of memories, and he wouldn’t let himself be bogged down with them.

The first thought that popped into Thor’s head was that the man looked tired. His shoulders were slumped forward, his clothes seemed to hang off of him. His pale face was marred with black circles around his eyes, and his watery eyes seemed on the verge of tears. He tried to give them a nod in greeting, but the movement only came across as an exhausted jerk.

Natasha stepped forward to introduce the team.

“Hello, you must be Mr. Haavik.” She reached out to shake his hand, “I’m Natasha Romanov, Director Fury sent us to help with the cave situation.”

The man nodded, his face turning grim. “Yes, Mr. Fury told us a team was coming, though I didn’t expect it to be so…” His eyes flickered between the Avengers, “famous. I don’t want to take up too much of your time. I’m sure that you have better things to do.”

It was small and almost unnoticeable, but something in Natasha’s face softened. “Don’t worry about that. We want to help, and we will do everything we can to make sure we can keep people safe.”

“Thank you, thank you.” The man’s eyes shone in gratitude, and he gave each of the Avengers a grateful smile before he sobered again. “We had two more people go missing since we last spoke to Mr. Fury. I don’t know for sure that they went into the cave, but they had been saying that they were hearing voices from it. And I…”

He tried to grasp at words, but it was obvious that the disappearances were taking their toll on him.

“I don’t know what’s happening,” he settled on, looking up at them hopelessly.

Natasha stepped forward and took one of the man’s hands. They were shaking violently. “Mr. Haavik, we will find them. We are here to figure this out, and I promise that we will do everything in our power to bring them home to their families.”

The man was lost for words, but gratefulness shone in his face.

Natasha took her hands back, momentarily looking over her shoulder at the rest of the team. Tony was nodding in agreement, with an uncharacteristically serious expression. Thor couldn’t agree more.

When Natasha turned back to the man, he seemed a bit more composed.

“If it’s possible, could you show us to the cave site? I think it would help if we could take a look and then talk to some of the locals.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” he said, ushering them forward into the village. “It’s only about a 15-minute walk from here. My son, Soren, will show you the way. He can answer any questions you have. I would come also, but I was with the families of the disappeared before you came and…” Grief welled up in his eyes again.

“Not a problem.” Tony cut in, stepping forward, “Let us take a look at the rocks, you can go back to helping their families.”

Haavik once again thanked them and, then, the Avengers were led into the surrounding forest.

Just as the town spokesman had said it took them about 15 minutes to get to the site. Thor didn’t need to be told that they were getting closer as they walked, because he could  _ feel  _ it.

He stepped into the area and immediately knew something was wrong. These were hallowed grounds, but in all the wrong ways. It was an ancient power, but, luckily, dormant. A relic. But its power had seeped into the place and it prickled on his skin, and settled on to him, sticky and uncomfortable. The shadows seemed darker, fiercer and almost,  _ almost, _ like they could start moving on their own.

Tony and Natasha didn’t seem like they had noticed anything amiss, but the Spider-child had noticeably begun shivering more since they approached the site.

He slowed his steps until he was walking right next to him. The boy looked impossibly small next to him, and briefly, Thor wondered when Stark had begun to take on apprentices so young.

“Do you feel it too?” he asked, under his breath. Peter jerked, obviously not expecting to be addressed.

For a second, he looked confused and then understanding dawned on him. “You mean the weird, creepy feeling that makes it seem like we are walking into a horror movie?”

Thor nodded, and Peter grimaced to the ground in front of him. He was clearly as unsettled by this as Thor felt. “Yeah,” he admitted, and then asked, “Do you know what it is?”

He shook his head. All he knew that something was amiss, but why and from what source, he didn’t know.

His brother would have known. Hel, his brother probably would have felt it the moment they stepped off the aircraft. He was much more attuned to things of a more magical nature, and Thor only had the slightest grasp on the concepts.

Just another reason Thor was a poor substitute on this mission.

He huffed a bitter laugh to himself as he felt the familiar want come roaring back. He was truly failing on his mission to put thoughts of his brother out of his head.

Before he could really think about it, though, Tony’s voice cut through his thoughts. “Hey, Point Break, hurry up and come tell us about the weird chicken-scratch they have written on these rocks.”

He glanced up to see that Nat, Tony and their guide, Soren, were gazing up at what appeared to be an archway sculpted around the entrance to the cave. It looked almost natural, but closer inspection revealed that the lines were a little too perfect, and the slopes a little too smooth.

It was an imitation of nature.

Just another  _ wrong  _ in a place that seemed saturated with it.

He walked up to where the other Avengers were standing, hearing Peter slowly follow.

Natasha met his eyes when he stood beside her. “They don’t look like any language that I’ve seen before. Is there a chance they aren’t from Earth?”

Thor found the runes she was describing. They were etched into the stone in a complex series of hard-edged lines and looping swirls, smooth and sharp grating against each other in a loose pattern. They were obviously ancient, with some parts of them smoothed over and moss growing in the dips. Thor’s face scrunched up, as he tried to decipher them, but knew almost instantly that it was a lost cause.

“You are right, Natasha, they are not of Midgard. They are Asgardian, but not in our modern language,” Thor recognised some ancient ancestors of the letters he grew up with, but couldn’t understand anything else about them. “I can tell that it is merely writing. No spells or enchantments are behind the words, but I cannot read them. I know not what they are marking.”

His brother would have known. Loki had been a scholar of many languages, ancient and modern alike. Thor had never quite understood his passion for the subject (why spend time on learning so many languages when All-speak took care of so much communication?), but he quickly realised that it was another point to which he’d been ignorant. Frustration welled in him. How had he been so oblivious to these things that Loki had understood so inherently? He was so useless, completely useless beyond his hammer and his strength. He was fooling himself if he thought anything else.

The voice that sounded like his brother’s whispered in his ear.  _ Brother, what- _

__ He shook his head as if he could physically dislodge it from his brain.

“I am sorry that I cannot be of more use.”

Tony patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, big guy, we all have performance issues from time to time. And, if you ask me, I’d rather the disappearances not be part of some big Asgardian magic mystery. I would take a regular search and rescue any day.”

Nat also nodded, “I couldn’t agree more, especially because it means that our chances of getting those people back increases.”

Then she looked up to the sky, noting how it was rapidly darkening. Soon, the whole forest would be plunged into the night’s murk and Thor didn’t want to be here when that happened.

“I suggest we head back,” she said, motioning for their guide that they were done here, “We can talk to the locals and see if we can find any clues about what makes this cave so easy to get lost in. We will also need to gather supplies before we go cave diving because I doubt there’s going to be much light down there.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Tony quipped, turning back to the direction of the village, and eager to get out of the cold. The spider-boy followed after him like a puppy. Thor couldn’t blame them; he wanted to leave this place also.

He was just about to start walking when Natasha’s hand caught his arm.

“Hey, I wanted to talk to you,” She said gently, “I know that you’ve been out of the field for a while, and I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

That question again.

Everyone kept asking that question, and he still didn’t know how to answer it. But he knew that lying to Natasha would be about as successful as lying to his brother. He met her eyes and tried for a smile.

“Thank you, Natasha, for your concern. I am…” The words were hard to get out. “I am taking it one day at a time.”

The spy hummed. “I guess that is as much as I could hope for. I know that you’ve been through a lot these last months. It’s just, Thor, please take care of yourself and let us know if we can help.”

Thor had to fight to keep back a bitter laugh. Yes, it has been a lot. Losing his father, his brother and his home planet almost all in the same week. Not to mention finding out he had another sibling who was hellbent on destroying his home, and the Titan who still waited in the far reaches of space, ready to pounce upon them like a ravenous wolf.

It had been a lot, and Thor was still figuring out if it had been enough to break him.

“If you want,” Natasha spoke again, “I can see about getting you transported out of here. I’m sure that me, Tony, and Peter can handle the rest of this.”

Thor shook his head vigorously. That was exactly what he didn’t want. It would only prove that he was still a failure and only a loose shadow of who he once was. He didn’t want that anymore. Panic rose in his throat at the thought of being dismissed, of being deemed not even worthy enough to aid others, of being too fragile to answer a call for help.

He just wanted to feel useful again.

Natasha leaned in closer and gave him a hug. She was also comically smaller than him, but at the moment, her arms seemed like the only thing grounding him.

“Hey, I get it.” She said softly, “We want you here and I just want to make sure that you want to be here too.”

Thor nodded, some of the anxiety releasing from him. “Yes, I do. These people need help and I want to be able to give it.”

“Good, I couldn’t agree more.” She gave him a confident smile, and Thor tried his best to mirror it. It wasn’t perfect, but it was getting there. “Now, let’s go find Tony before he gets himself lost in the woods.”

They began to head back, and Thor was grateful that, as he walked away from the site of the cave, the eerie feeling slipped off of him. By the time they reached the village, he had nearly convinced himself that it was just his imagination. The only thing that was keeping him from fully committing to that theory, though, was Peter’s similar sense of it.

He and Natasha unloaded their supplies and put them in the quaint hostel that the village had prepared for them to stay. They planned to get an early start tomorrow, hopefully explore the cave, and find their missing people before nightfall. Just in case, they were also preparing rations for a few days within the cave, but didn’t plan on being there for that long.

“Alright,” Natasha said as she finished double-checking their supplies for the morrow. “I think that’s done. I’m going to head in for the night, but I think Tony’s downstairs at the bar if you want to see what he’s up to.”

She phrased it like a request, but the meaning behind her words was very clear:  _ Make sure he isn’t making a fool of himself because we have work to do tomorrow. _

Thor laughed and began to walk towards the stairs. “I will ensure that he gets to bed.”

“Good. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Sleep well, Natasha.”

Thor began to walk down, around hearing the familiar raucous of a pub as he approached. Tony’s full-bellied laughter rang out.

As Thor walked in, he was immediately struck with an instant bout of nostalgia. The architecture of Norway and Asgard shared many similarities, and he could clearly see where they had inspired each other centuries ago. The pub was warm and filled with the golden light of a fireplace flickering on the wall. The smoky smell of the fire mixed with the rich scent of food, reminding Thor of the many pubs he had visited in his adventures. If he closed his eyes, he could almost fool himself into thinking he was on a hunting trip with the Warriors Three. Almost like he was back home before the world was complicated and willing to destroy everything he held dear.

“Point Break! Hey!” Tony called out to him from the bar, waving a half-drunk pint over his head. Peter sat next to him, nursing what looked to be a steaming cup of tea.

He chuckled to himself as he took the seat on Tony’s other side. He met the bartender’s eyes. “Mead, please, if you have it.” The man nodded and went to fill another glass.

He came back and placed the glass in front of the god. “You really the god of thunder?” he asked gruffly.

Thor lifted a hand and summoned a couple of sparks to light in his palm. The barkeep nodded approvingly. “My bedtime stories were about you. Is that one about you in a wedding dress true?”

“Wait what?” Tony cut in, “What story about a wedding dress?”

Thor grimaced. If his brother was here, Loki would surely be laughing and retelling the tale in great and excruciating detail. He used to take every opportunity to embarrass Thor with that particular story, and centuries of practice had perfected Loki’s ability to tell it in the most mortifying way possible. He did not miss the embarrassment, but he ached for his brother’s rare and sly laugh and that mischievous glint his eyes got when he prepared to regale a story. 

“It was my brother’s idea,” Thor admitted gruffly. Of course, it was Loki’s idea. All of their craziest adventures always were.

The bartender laughed with a friendly sparkle in his eyes. “If he were here, I’d buy him a beer for blessing us with that story.” He reached out a hand, and Thor shook it. ” The name is Gavin. Gavin Bergeson.”

“Thor Odinson of Asgard.” He said, although the man probably knew that already. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Please the honour is all mine. I really do appreciate you coming out here to help our people. That cave has always been creepy, there’s even some legends about it, but I never thought it would become dangerous.”

Thor couldn’t help but perk up a bit at that. On Tony’s other side, Peter seemed similarly interested. “Mr. Bergeson,” he asked politely. “What kind of legend?”

Bergeson wiped at the bar, humming as he did. “It’s an old tale, one that’s told to scare the youngins from wandering into the forest alone. I even remember being scared by it when I was growing up here.

Legend tells that this forest used to be the hunting grounds for a terrifying monster. People wouldn’t leave their houses at night, and, when it got dark, the forest would come alive with its howls and shrieks as it stalked all living things. Many people died trying to take it down, and for every life it took, it only grew stronger.

The village lived in fear until two warriors arrived to slay the beast. They brandished otherworldly weapons and abilities that no human could possess. They knew the monster that hunted the woods and said that it was called a Jotunn.”

Thor’s breath caught in his throat, and he fought to keep a blank face. Instantly, memories of his brother rushed into his mind, so fast that they almost swallowed him whole. It took him a moment to realise that the bartender had started talking directly to him.

“I guess those warriors were two of your folks. Have you heard of a Jotunn? They are supposed to be pretty nasty creatures.”

Something in Thor wanted to break everything in the bar. Something else in Thor just wanted to crumple with all the shame that welled up inside him. He settled for taking another drink from his beer like a coward.

“I’ve met a couple,” he admitted, as Loki’s face flashed in his mind. What would his brother think about him now? Not even brave enough to defend his brother in death.

The barkeeper continued without noting Thor’s discomfort. “Well, the warriors came to slaughter the beast.” Thor flinched at the word. Peter’s eyes flickered onto him in curious concern. “The battle was long and hard, and the forest was awash in screams that night. It’s said that you can still hear the echoes of them if you listen to the forest closely.

The warriors were brave, but the beast was stronger, and it became clear they could not overcome it. So instead they trapped it in the cave, sealing it away to a place where it could never hurt anyone again.”

The barkeeper finished and took Tony’s finished glass from his hand to begin to clean it.

“I wouldn’t worry about the legend though; it’s just a fiction. The cave has been explored many times, and there’s nothing down there except for rats and spiders.”

Peter grimaced, “I hate spiders.”

Bergeson laughed, “Well, hopefully, that’s the scariest thing you’re going to encounter. Now you all should go to bed; you have a long day in front of you, and you don’t need to be sitting here and hearing an old man’s tale. Off with you now.”

Thor didn’t need to be told twice and began ushering Tony upstairs and to bed. Peter followed behind; his shoulder muscles were tensed and hunched.

“Mr. Thor,” he said, his voice quiet like he didn’t want to disturb the gentle peace that had settled on the hostel. “You don’t think that the story the barkeeper told us was true, do you?”

Thor shook his head. “Perhaps, it had some basis of truth, but the Jotunns were...” he caught on the next word, “‘exterminated’ from Midgard by the Aesir thousands of years ago. There is not a chance that we would not have left one alive.” Shame flared tight in his chest. His previous words echoed in his head. His promises to Loki to kill every breathing Jotunn even as he called one brother. He had thought himself brave then, but he was a fool for thinking that bravery could be bought with blood.

“Do not worry, young spider. There won’t be a Jotunn in the cave and if there is anything. I will protect you.”

“Thanks, Mr. Thor,” Peter said, actually looking relieved. The tension had leaked out of his shoulders, and he was back to looking like a puppy again. “I’m going to go to bed. I’ll see you in the morning, alright?”

Thor clapped a hand on the boy’s arm. “I will see you in the morning.”

He watched Peter walk down the hall and turn into his room, before going to his own bed. The voice that sounded like Loki’s was whispering in his ear, urgent and insistent, but he shut it out.

He would not entertain ghosts while awake, especially when he knew they would only continue to haunt his nightmares.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, thank you everyone for reading!! 
> 
> I'm very excited about this story and to finally be sharing it. This idea hit me like a truck and wouldn't let me go until I wrote it. Right now, I'm predicting that this story will be 6 chapters, plus an epilogue... but then again I also said it was only going to be 10k words, which obviously isn't happening.
> 
> Feel free to contact me on my tumblr at [ SalParadiseLost ](https://salparadiselost.tumblr.com) for my general musings or if you ever wanna talk about writing or read any of my weird posts!
> 
> Thank you again and please leave a kudos and comment! I thrive off of feedback.


	2. The Whispers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A baby says his first words.
> 
> Thor & Co. keep going into the mysterious cave and things keep going worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter with a week of the first? Who's this??
> 
> Thank you all for following this story to a second chapter! I hope you enjoy it!

Chapter 2: The Whispers

They were up and at the cave by sunrise the next morning. The soft light of the dawn had gilded the trees, and made everything look like it was lined with gold. The site was kinder in the morning and had less of the subtle sense of _wrong_ that Thor felt while investigating it yesterday.

It still lingered, persistent at the back of his head, but this time he thought that it was more due to a lack of sleep than anything nefarious.

Thor probably hadn’t gotten more than 5 hours of restless slumber last night. Memories plagued his thoughts, and his dreams were hounded with images of destruction.

_His mother dying his father dying his brother dying his home being reduced to ruins_

Visions of fire and death haunted him, and above all that, Loki’s whispering seemed clearer than ever. Early in the evening, Thor had only ever heard the voice like it was far away, almost as if Loki was standing in the next room over and trying to speak to him through a wall.

But now it was almost as if Loki was in a room with him. The words weren’t clear; they were more like sounds more than anything, but Thor knew Loki’s intonation and tone. He knew that it was his brother’s voice that he was conjuring up in his own head.

Thor had valiantly been trying to ignore it, but even in death Loki never shut up.

_Tho- … lis… m_

“Be quiet,” Thor muttered to himself as he tried to focus on the plan that the Black Widow was laying out. They had gone over the plan earlier that morning right before they had left the village, but she saw fit to do so a second time.

… Which probably was correct considering that Tony and Peter looked exactly as tired as Thor felt.

They both stood to either side of him, dressed in their hiking clothes. Yesterday, they had decided not to wear their “supersuits”. They had no reason to believe that they would need the notoriety that the suits brought, and it was easier to layer pedestrian clothes in what would surely be a cold cave. In addition, they thought it might help relax the villagers, who were already shocked that their little town had been rocked by such an event.

Which is not to say that they weren’t armed. Thor knew that Natasha surely had multiple knives and weapons hidden within the large jacket she was wearing. Tony and Peter probably had both of their suits stowed away on them.

Thor didn’t necessarily need a weapon to be formidable, but it was times like these when he greatly missed the feeling of Mjolnir in his hand. The hammer had been a part of him for centuries, almost like a physical connection to his home. A representation of the might of his Kingdom.

It only figures that it was destroyed as thoroughly as everything else about him.

He would never get the hammer back, and he hadn’t found it in himself to bring another into battle, so for this mission, he had brought the Vanir longsword, Verity.

The blade had belonged to his brother, and it was one of the many he had kept in his dimensional pocket to be pulled out if needed. It was a fine weapon, befitting of a prince, but it had never been one of Loki’s favourites. 

The sword had been a gift from the Vanir court, given to him on one of his birthdays. Loki suspected that it was meant to be a slight- it was simply too coincidental to give the God of Lies a sword named Verity, especially when the blade was so unfitting for him. It was unwieldy, ill-balanced, and obviously made for someone much larger than Loki. In addition, it was well known that the younger prince preferred the small blades, knives and daggers, which he could throw and keep his hands clean with. Everything about the sword was wrong, but Loki had never been one to turn down a gift, even if the gift was meant to mock him. 

He had been repairing it on the _Statesman_ , resharpening the edge, fitting it better to his grip and making it more to his liking. He had even asked Thor to spar with him to get a better idea of how the blade acted in battle. Neither of them preferred to use swords in a fight, but they had been trained to be versatile, and it forced both of them to exercise a skill that would have gone to waste.

Later, Thor realised the sparring had not only been a distraction, something to pull them away from the stress of running a broken kingdom, but it was also Loki extending a hand. His brother’s actions had always bore more truths than his honeyed words. It was too late in his life that Thor had begun to care to pay attention.

Loki had never had a chance to finish his repairs on the sword.

In his stead, Thor had taken it upon himself to finish what Loki began. He had spent hours learning Loki’s methods and trying to predict what his brother would have wanted. He spent hours crying silently when he realised he would never get the chance to ask.

Upon its completion, he had hung it in his home in New Asgard; a silent tribute to his brother.

He had hesitated bringing it here, but Valkyrie insisted that it was the finest weapon they had and “don’t be an idiot, your Majesty. Lackey made that sword to be used, and I don’t think he’d appreciate it if you left it up on a wall collecting dust”.

Peter had been particularly impressed by the sword when Thor had shown it to him earlier that morning. He had insisted that “it looked straight out of Lord of the Rings” (Thor was not sure who this Ring Lord was, but he must have an impressive array of weapons) and was the “coolest thing he had ever seen”. Thor had allowed the boy to give the sword a few swings, impressed that he was even able to lift a weapon made for Aesir strength.

Now the sword hung on his hip in the shape of “a fanny pack” to remain hidden while he explored the cave. Peter had suggested the form, and seemed particularly enthusiastic about it, so Thor had acquiesced. It was a fine form for the sword to be hidden as and it also had the benefit of incorporating the sword’s scabbard into the disguise.

He did not understand why Tony had laughed so much when Peter suggested it.

“Alright, listen up boys.” Natasha’s voice instantly drew their attention. Thor wasn’t sure when they had decided, but she had become the leader on this trip. She had given them each a pack, and was going over their rations, their supply of light sources, and the perils of getting separated from each other.

“We each have three flares,” she continued, “and they are to be used for _emergencies only._ ” She stressed that last part while looking at Tony. He just shrugged and shot her a smirk that offered absolutely no promises of listening.

Which was probably the best that they could hope for out of Tony.

Despite all his quips though, Thor had no doubt that he was capable and committed to helping the people who had disappeared. After all, it was Tony that had first taken notice of the disappearances and brought them to Fury for SHIELD investigation. It was Tony who had pushed to bring Thor in and convinced the god to come in the first place.

Of course, it hadn’t been too hard to convince Thor to come. He had desperately craved for something to make him feel useful again, and he was more than willing to lend his hand to Tony Stark’s cause.

When he had reported to Stark to board the Quinjet for the mission, he had been surprised to see the Spider there. He had yet to meet this newest Avenger, even though Tony spoke of him often. The young Peter was apparently quite accomplished, and Stark talked of him like a proud father talked like a son.

He was excited to see how the Spider would prove himself on this mission. It would certainly be something quite impressive.

He risked a glance to the boy and saw that he was intently listening to the Widow, nodding occasionally when she met his eyes. Thor smiled at that innocent admiration he had for her and felt something in him warm. It had been so long since he had interacted with any children, and he hadn’t even realised that he missed it so much.

His brother surely would have loved meeting Peter. The boy had the inquisitive and open spirit that Loki absolutely adored in children.

He shook himself, prying himself away from his own thoughts as they wandered unto Loki. He couldn’t think of him now, not when there was a mission spread out before them.

Instead, he focused on his teammates, who were all preparing to descend into the cave. Natasha must have finished her safety talk. Thor was a little embarrassed that he had not listened to it, but it seemed pretty intuitive: go into the cave, find the people, and leave the cave as soon as possible.

He was ready.

He was ready for a mission, even if it was much smaller than most Avenger’s duty. He was ready to help people again, to feel like himself again and not a broken shadow of it.

And, if he admitted it to himself, to deserve the title of Earth’s Mightiest Hero.

A small traitorous part of him, whispered darkly. Could he ever deserve that title again? When he was not able to save his own brother?

_Or… mus… lis.._

That Loki-sounding voice was murmuring furiously in the background, and Thor put it out of his head. He didn’t have time for the babbling of his own grief-turned madness.

He was also too afraid to think about what it truly meant.

“Ready to go, Sparky?” Tony said, clapping Thor on the shoulder and effectively distracting him from the Loki-voice’s prattle. Stark would never know how grateful he was for that.

Thor forced himself to straighten up, and to take on a hero’s stance. He met Tony’s eyes with a confident grin that he didn’t truly feel.

“Yes, friend Stark, I am ready to begin the spelunking expedition.”

“Excellent,” Tony said as he moved back to say something to Peter.

The boy was practically vibrating with excitement, but Thor could see tiny nervous cracks in his face. Peter stared up at Stark, nodding along to the man’s advice. When finished, Stark clapped his shoulder and moved back to Natasha.

The moment that the billionaire walked away, Thor watched a little bit more of the boy’s confidence begin to shift. Thor would have to give him some merit; the boy was hiding his nerves very well.

But it was still obviously painful how young and eager to please he was.

Thor could remember that feeling well. It was inherent to being destined to the throne. He wasn’t sure whether Peter or Tony himself recognised it, but he could see it between them clearly,

Tony talked to Peter as a son. Peter looked up to the older Stark as a father. Perhaps neither of them had said it in explicit words, but Thor had grown up in a palace and the courts. He was trained to recognise the royalty in others.

Whether they recognised it or not, Tony was preparing Peter for his company’s crown.

Which, if he understood Midgard as well as he suspected he did, it was a lofty position indeed.

“Alright, boys, stop standing around. We have some people to save.” Natasha called their attention. She had her backpack on her shoulders and a headlamp around her head. She clicked it on and then began moving to the cave.

Tony followed behind her with Peter at his side. The younger boy anxiously flicked his eyes all around the cave opening, but continued forward bravely. Again, Thor found himself impressed.

The god was last, hesitating just for a moment to look at the runes etched into the side of the cave one more time. They were easier to see during the daytime, but that didn’t make their meaning any clearer.

Once again, he wished that his brother was there to give him advice, and to be more than a figment of his imagination muttering in his ear.

He walked to the entrance of the cave, standing at the lip of it. Ahead of him, the lights from his companions flickered and reflected off of the smooth surfaces of the rock. He would almost call it beautiful in a macabre way, if that sense of _wrong_ didn’t sit so pervasively in the back of his mind.

That and his little brother’s imaginary voice.

_Ease… ten… no…s_

His grief was doing strange things to him. But, hopefully, this mission and the distraction it provided would help ease it away.

He hoped.

He desperately hoped.

And so, he plunged into the darkness of the cave.

The first couple hours in the cave were mostly… boring. The only things to see were darkness and rocks and Peter’s backpack. His companions were silent, everyone trying to search the cave for clues, which unfortunately left Thor a lot of time in his own head.

The exact thing he was trying to avoid.

The sense of _wrong_ that seemed inherent with this cave was only growing thicker by the moment, getting harder and harder to simply ignore. He could feel it on his skin now, subtly brushing him and making him want to itch at his arms.

He wasn’t the only one either. As then were walking, he watched the muscles on Peter’s back grow tenser and tenser.

On top of that, the voice that sounded like Loki’s was getting clearer. It seemed to be able to say full words now, but it was mostly just repeating Thor’s name.

_Thor… me… you… Thor_

He didn’t think he had ever heard Loki say his name as many times as he did now. It would almost be humorous if the familiar voice didn’t drive a knife of mourning into his heart each time he heard it.

“Hey, I think I got something over here!” Tony’s voice bounced around the cave, giving it a strange echoey quality.

The group circled around the billionaire, peering down at the item his flashlight shined on. It was small, covered with dirt, and could hardly be recognised as a human-made thing. But when Tony shifted it with his foot, it became clear what it was, and it hit Thor like a punch to the gut.

Because on the ground, dusty and abandoned, was a child’s shoe. On its side was a smear of dried blood.

“Damn,” Natasha cursed with fury on her face. She muttered more expletives under her breath as she turned, and began to search the surrounding area for more hints on what happened.

Thor couldn’t blame her. A similar hot rage boiled in his chest, and he felt the urge to punch straight through the rock with his fist.

Tony came up on Thor’s side, his face similarly pinched in grim acknowledgment. Peter was silent, staring at the small shoe with a pale expression.

“Hey kid, why don’t you help Nat look for clues?” Tony suggested, eager to get the kid away from the grim piece of evidence. The boy’s jaw tightened, but he silently went to survey the area with the spy.

Thor and Tony stood together quietly before Tony spoke again.

“What do you think happened?” he asked in an almost whisper.

Thor just shook his head. “I cannot guess, but I hope that it is an accident. Perhaps the child simply tripped over something?”

The explanation was weak, even in Thor’s ear, but neither of them wanted to put worse situations into words.

“Yeah, yeah, it was probably just that.” Tony tried to agree, but his voice was tight. “All we need to do is find the kid, and everything will be okay.”

“Guys,” Natasha said, sharp and stressed. He instantly snapped his head up and his muscles tensed. He found his hand trying to grasp for a hammer that didn’t exist anymore. “You might want to come over here and look at this.”

He didn’t think as he walked over, not wanting to imagine what other thing he was going to see. What other sign proving that they had already failed.

But Natasha wasn’t looking down at a bloody piece of clothing, she was shining her light on to the wall.

Etched into the wall in furiously clashing swipes and scratches were the same runes from the entrance of the cave. There were so many more of them though, scratched into every corner of the wall in frantic frenzy, filling all the possible space. When he shone his light down the cavern, he saw that they just continued further down.

The feeling of _wrong_ pulsed all around him, filling the air and threatening to curl into his lungs. Anxiety was bubbling in his stomach and he fought to keep it down.

Down, down, down, so his companions couldn’t see.

“ _Oh, these are lovely.”_ Loki’s voice came from right next to his ear, so close and clear that it was almost like his brother had been leaning over his shoulder to study the runes. Thor whipped his head towards the voice, fully expecting to see Loki again. The voice had been too clear, too real, too there to not be…

But there was nothing.

There was nothing.

There was always nothing.

Because Loki was dead.

The heartbreak was fierce and ferocious, feeling like the organ was being ripped in half. It hurt like he was watching his brother die again, with the same feeling of helplessness washing over him again. Air was catching in his throat, and he couldn’t draw in another breath. Everything just felt too hard.

The grief, he was drowning in it.

The voice that was Loki’s ( _it wasn’t Loki’s. it couldn’t have been Loki’s. Loki was dead. He didn’t have a—_ ) hummed, a habitual sound that Loki used to make when he was studying something. Thor had heard it thousands of times, usually as Loki was bent over a book or reviewing a scroll.

“ _I’ve never seen these in person. I’ve hardly seen them recreated in books … and on Midgard of all places.”_

Thor blinked, staring at the place where he was sure the voice was coming from.

What was this? Was this madness? Was this truly his grief for Loki being recreated in a new form?

… to talk about the runes?

Which, if he had to admit, was preferable to the visions of fire and the endless replay of his brother’s final pained and gasping breaths.

 _“Magnificent,”_ The Loki voice murmured, “ _Perhaps, I should… wait. Thor? Can you hear me?”_

Thor snapped his gaze in a different direction, feeling suddenly embarrassed. This wasn’t real. This couldn’t be real, and he could not allow himself to indulge in this maddening fantasy.

But the Loki voice kept hissing frantically around him. “ _Thor, Thor, come on, you oaf, just listen—“_

“Hey, Point Break, you okay over there?” Tony’s voice pried Thor from his thoughts and instantly made it easier to ignore the madness that was desperately trying to get his attention. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Tony couldn’t have possibly known how true his words were.

Thor forced a smile and pointedly turned his back to where the voice was coming from.

“ _Thor, please…”_

“I am fine, Friend Stark, just distracted by my own thoughts.”

“ _Brother, please…”_ The Loki voice was sounding more broken, and it stung Thor’s heart more than he thought it would. _“Please, don’t ignore me.”_

It hurt, but Thor ignored the voice. “I am trying to think of what these symbols could possibly mean.”

“Still not having any luck on reading them?” Natasha asked quietly, her tone heavy. Thor was disappointed that he had to shake his head.

“I am sorry, Lady Natasha. I could not even tell you who they originated from.”

“ _They are Stygian Cultic Runes.”_ The Loki voice spoke again, but it came out tight and miserable instead of pleading. It was immediately to Thor’s right, almost as if his brother was standing by his side. “ _Almost as old as Asgard’s capital city herself.”_

It took everything in Thor to not turn to the voice or show that he was hearing it. 

The spy nodded and gave a heavy sigh. “We can only keep continuing forward,” she said, “and hope that we can find the people before it’s too late.”

 _“No, you should not. Turn back now before it is too late.”_ The Loki voice hissed urgently and immediately in front of his face. It was sudden enough to make Thor startle. The voice that sounded like Loki’s immediately pounced on that movement.

 _“Thor, you immeasurable idiot, I know that you can hear me. For once in your Norns-damned life, will you_ listen _to me. You are in danger, everyone here is in danger. I do not know what else is—“_

He focused on something else. Anything else. And forced himself to not listen to his imagination. It was becoming harder though, especially as his brother’s imagined voice as getting more desperate.

It prickled tears in his eyes, and he bit back a growl of frustration. He needed to stay calm, stay sane, and not let the others see.

“Mr. Thor?” A small voice came from ahead of him, and he jerked his head up to see all of his companions staring at him.

He hadn’t been as inconspicuous as he had hoped, apparently.

“Are you alright?” young Peter asked, coming towards him slowly. They were all looking at him gently, like he was an easily-frightened horse, and they were afraid to spook him.

“Yes, of course, I am fine.” He insisted, but no one looked convinced.

“Really?” Tony gave him a non-believing raised eyebrow, “Because you really don’t look fine and you keep staring off into nothing.”

“Yes, yes,” Thor tried again, “I am only thinking and trying to figure out the mystery.”

 _“A rare occurrence,”_ The Loki voice quipped, and Thor had to hold himself back from instinctively bickering. He knew that arguing with an imaginary voice wouldn’t look well in trying to convince the other Avengers he was fine.

Stark kept giving him that questioning look, and Thor stonily met his eyes. He had been raised on the receiving end of both his Mother’s, his Father’s, and Loki’s intense gazes. Tony’s skepticism would not phase him. At other times, he would have been touched by the concern, but now it just felt mocking.

“Fine,” the billionaire relented eventually, “let’s just keep going forward so we can get out of here quicker.”

Thor couldn’t agree more.

The Loki voice, true to form, did not agree. “ _No, that’s exactly wrong. You all need to turn back now.”_

Unfortunately for it, madness did not have any say on the decisions the group made.

They continued on, and Thor continued to ignore the madness and sense of _wrong_ that was pestering at the bad of his head. It was hard, though, much harder than he imagined it would be.

For one, the imagined voice was as persistent as Loki was in life. Despite how Thor pointedly kept his head forward, it didn’t stop the voice from endlessly trying to gain his attention. Each time brought a wave of nostalgia, cutting into his heart more and more.

He desperately wanted it to stop—his heart was mangled enough already. Did he really need to break it more with his own imagination?

And so, he continued trying to avoid acknowledging his brother’s voice, but even he could tell that he was beginning to flag.

 _“Thor, if you are truly trying to convince me that you don’t hear me, then you really need to stop jerking in the opposite direction every time I talk,”_ The Loki voice said drily with a current of exasperation under it. _“Really, brother, you are not even speaking, and I can tell that you are lying.”_

Thor couldn’t help the flush of embarrassment that rose up his neck. He had never been good at lying. It had always been Loki’s gift, and even in death, his brother still saw fit to call him out on it.

The Loki voice continued to babble, an old habit of Loki’s. As a child, he used to do it incessantly, but as an adult he learned to tamp it down. Now, Thor had only ever heard it when Loki was nervous and speaking directly to him. It seemed to be a behaviour expressly reserved for Thor and, for anyone else, Loki’s anxiety was stonily silent.

Of course, Loki being the annoying younger brother he was, meant that his nervous ramblings often took the form of insults to Thor.

_“Really, brother, you must stop being so transparent. At this rate, your companions are going to believe that you’ve gone as mad as me. I do hope you do better with insanity than I did. My madness ended with me caged and muzzled like an animal by my own parents. Which, I guess, I cannot blame them for wanting to tame a monster. I—”_

That’s what made Thor snap. He didn’t know why his own head was making Loki’s voice say these lies, but he would not tolerate it any longer. No one, not even himself, was allowed to reduce Loki to a mere creature.

He took one glance to make sure that his companions weren’t paying attention to him. Then, stared down the direction that the voice was coming from and growled. “Loki was not a monster.”

There was a beat of silence, from the voice, and Thor thought that maybe he had finally shut it up.

But as he said before, his brother truly didn’t know how to be quiet.

 _“I knew it! I knew that you could hear me.”_ The Loki voice gave a relieved burst of laughter and the sound echoed in Thor’s head. He couldn’t remember the last time he heard Loki laugh in a way that wasn’t self-deprecating. “ _I knew it was only a matter of time until I could figure out what I needed to say to get you to outburst.”_

The voice had been goading him, he realised and a feeling of cold shot down his spine. He had been manipulated by his own mind. He had missed Loki so desperately that he was beginning to replay his brother’s tricks inside his head.

He put a hand in his hair, rubbing at his forehead like he could physically pull the madness out of him.

“This cannot be happening,” he murmured to himself, “My brother is dead. He cannot be talking to me in my head.”

 _“You are half-correct.”_ The voice that sounded like Loki’s came from in front of him, and he could practically see his brother, standing with his hands on his hips, proud and eager with the chance to illuminate just how wrong Thor was. “ _You are right that I am dead, but that does not mean I am not able to speak to you. I am not in your head either.”_

“You are, though, and I am going insane with grief.”

“ _What? No. Thor. You are not actually going insane, I only said that to make you angry. But you must listen to me. You and your Avenging friends must turn back now, there is—”_

“Hey, Thor, buddy? Who are you whispering to back there?” Tony’s voice filtered in and he realised that, once again, everyone was staring at him.

“I’m fine,” he snapped and tried to keep walking past his companions. Natasha’s hands on his shoulders stopped him though.

“Thor.” Her tone was firm and unwavering. “Look me in the eyes and tell me you’re okay.”

The god hesitated, looking at the ground.

“ _You are stalling, Thor. That will only make her more suspicious. Hurry and tell her you are hale.”_ Loki’s voice urged him on, which was just proof of how _not_ okay he was.

He couldn’t. He couldn’t lie as his brother did.

And so, he remained silent as he felt the Widow’s eyes search his face.

“What’s wrong?” she whispered gentler than before and it nearly caused Thor to break.

“I…” The words kept dying on his tongue. “I… I am hearing him.” He said it almost too quietly for her to hear.

 _“What? Why would you admit…”_ The voice kept filtering in and out of his head.

“Him?”

“My brother.”

“Reindeer Games?” Tony asked, confusion wrinkling his face.

Thor nodded, “I believe that this place is turning my grief upon me. It’s making me hear him.” He felt small as he admitted it, weaker than he had ever remembered. He wasn’t sure which was worse: the pain that his brother’s voice brought him, or the pity reflected on his companions’ faces.

“But it is fine,” he insisted, “I can just ignore it and continue forward. It will not interfere with the mission.”

“Sparky, you’ve been acting squirrely ever since we landed here,” Tony cut in. “It’s obviously bothering you.”

“ _Thor, you must stop this…”_ The voice was still trying to get his attention.

“I promise. I am fine,” he lied. He wasn’t sure whether it was to Tony or to himself.

The billionaire didn’t look convinced at all. Granted, if their positions were reversed, Thor wouldn’t have believed himself either.

“You’re not fine.”

“I am.”

“You’re not and you’re a shit liar about it.”

That made Thor snap. “Of course, I’m not. Would you be if you had the echoes of the dead whispering in your ear?” he yelled, and the sound echoed all through the cave.

For the first time since he’d entered the cave, his companions and the voice were all silent.

He breathed heavily, running a hand through his hair and turning his back to the other Avengers. He couldn’t look at them. He couldn’t bear to look at them and see how pathetic they thought he was.

Cautiously, he heard the voice edge close to him. “ _Thor,”_ it said with a tenderness that was rare for his brother. “ _Thor, brother, please believe me. You are not going mad,”_ it tried to reassure, but it was just making everything so much worse, mocking him with its care.

“Shut up,” he hissed in its general direction, praying once again that he could banish it away. Thank the Norns, it actually managed to stay silent that time.

“Alright, I’m calling it,” Natasha said, making Thor whip his head towards her.

“Pardon?”

“This mission is over for you. You’re not ready for this,” she insisted. The words were harsh, and there was an obvious conflict on her face.

No, no, no. No, he couldn’t give up. It couldn’t be over. This mission was supposed to make him feel whole again. This was supposed to make him forget about how broken he was, not prove to him how unredeemable he was.

“No, Natasha, please.” He didn’t bother to pretend he wasn’t begging. “I am able. I am fine. I can continue.”

She shook her head, looking at him with regret. “I’m sorry, Thor. I care about you too much to let you keep doing this to yourself. We are turning back.”

“But, but, what about the missing people?”

“Tony, Peter and I will come back tomorrow.”

He was a liability. He was a burden. He had cost them a day due to his own weakness and now people were going to suffer more because of it.

He wanted to protest. He wanted to believe that he didn’t believe it himself.

But, he was not a good liar. Not even to himself.

Silently, he nodded. All the fight dying out of him. There was no use to struggling against the obvious anyways.

Without another word, the group turned and began to walk back the way they came.

The Loki-voice didn’t try to speak to Thor again. Perhaps, it was satisfied. This is what it wanted, for him to leave the cave. It would be—

“Hey, was there a fork in the road the first time we walked down it?” Tony cut through his thoughts, making him look up.

There definitely had not been a fork in the cave. The entire time they had been walking, it was a straight path.

But, sure enough, illuminated by the light of their headlamps, an obvious divergence in the path, where the cave split into two lines.

The group stood frozen, staring up at the entry ways that had definitely not been there before.

“This definitely wasn’t here,” Natasha said, producing a gun from the folds of her clothes. The tension in the air was palpable.

Thor opened his mouth to ask a question, but as he did so there was a snap of magic and the cave was filled with firelight burning from sconces on either side of the openings. It felt like seidr, but it obviously _wasn’t._ It was something dark and different from anything that his brother had wielded.

“Guys,” Peter’s voice was small, and he was pointing to something on the side of the entry.

Thor followed his vision and realised that he was seeing symbols. Hundreds of the jagged symbols etched into the stone and covering every surface of the rockface. Their lines were sharp and frantic, some of them overlapped each other creating a mad collection. They were so small and numerous that Thor had taken them for cracks in the rocks.

These symbols were obviously the same language as the ones on the cave entrance. Thor could recognise some of them as ancient ancestors to Modern Asgardian glyphs. But these runes looked new, as if they had been etched just yesterday. 

The feeling of _wrong_ was fiercer than ever. It shivered through his bones, crawled under his skin, and made his heart race in his chest. Anxiety rolled in his chest, and he began to realise that his uneasiness in this place hadn’t been entirely in his head.

Something here was _wrong._ Very, very obviously wrong.

The voice that sounded like Loki spoke in his ear, clearer than Thor had ever heard it.

_“We are too late. It knows you’re here.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading!
> 
> I had a very fun time writing this chapter and I hope you all enjoyed reading it. I appreciate the support and all your kudos and comments! Vist my tumblr at [ SalParadiseLost ](https://salparadiselost.tumblr.com) for my general musings.
> 
> Special thanks to Sundial_at_Night for beta-ing and correcting my grammar mistakes!


	3. The Blinding Lights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor starts seeing things. Instead of shutting them out, he opens the door to let them in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone and thank you for tuning into my ghost story again! I hope you enjoy it and like all the spooky happenings I have in store. 
> 
> Special thanks to Sundial_at_Night for betaing, correcting all my en & em-dashes, and putting up with my random ramblings about whether the Asgardian equivalent of "humanoid" is "aesiroid".
> 
> Basically, at this point my story is that one meme.
> 
> Thor: My brother died tragically while trying to be a hero.  
> Loki: Quit telling everyone I’m dead!  
> Thor: *wipes tear* Sometimes I can still hear his voice.

Chapter 3: The Blinding Lights

Loki’s words chilled Thor. They were ice sliding down his spine, cold anxiety wedging into his heart. They were delusions. Surely, they had to be delusions.

And yet, doubt had also begun to worm its way into his mind.

If this voice that sounded and reasoned so much like his brother was truly just his own madness, then how did it seem to understand things Thor did not?

It had called the runes, “Stygian Cultic Runes”, a term that Thor had never heard before. He didn’t have an inkling as to what “Stygian” could possibly mean? Did it really spring from his own mind? Was he even creative enough for that?

Perhaps madness gave a person more of a sense of inventiveness?

He truly did not want to think about it. He did not want to think about what could be happening to him.

But it was hard when the voice kept at its whisperings.

“ _…is it possible? No… not unless… No, I was right the first time. It’s not possible.”_ It seemed to be muttering to itself more than Thor now, which he was grateful for.

He wasn’t sure how much more of this he could take.

Thor turned to his companions, steeling himself once again to ignore the voice.

The cave still crowded around him, an ever constant and claustrophobic presence. Its rocks and darkness were continually pressing against him. The soft sound of dripping as water rolled from the rocks was a consistent rhythm, as if the cavern was a great body that groaned with its workings.

Tony was fidgeting, his eyes skittering over the runes in rapid succession. Beside him, Peter looked equally as disturbed, but was trying valiantly to not let it show. Natasha was surveying the area with a cool gaze.

“So which direction do we go?” Stark murmured, fingering the straps of his backpack.

“To the right,” Natasha said, firmly looking in that route.

“Why to the right?”

She shrugged. “We need to decide a direction. I’m choosing right instead of wasting time debating it.” She began walking that way, not sparing a glance back to the runes or the rest of her team. She knew they would follow her regardless.

Peter immediately stumbled after her, eager to get out of the creepy fork in the road as soon as possible. The god understood the sentiment.

Tony hung back, looking at Thor with pity in his eyes. Thor fought not to shrink under the gaze.

“Look, Thor, I’m sorry,” he admitted. “I know from experience how hard grief can be and I shouldn’t have been so harsh on you. Everyone takes it in different ways and…” His voice trailed off and he searched for something else to say. “And I was… I could have said something better,” he finished lamely, but was obviously trying his best to offer comfort.

“Thank you, friend Stark.” Thor put a heavy hand on his shoulder. The motion felt so familiar it ached. “But you do not need to apologise. I was reacting rather irrationally as well.”

“It must be something about the creepy murder cave and all its demonic chicken scratch. They play with the mind.”

Tony had said it as a jest, but something about the statement sent a chill down Thor’s spine. He dearly hoped that his friend’s words would not be proven true. But that sense of _wrong_ that tugged in the back of his mind, insistent and incessant, made Thor have his doubts—what was real? What was fake? What was madness or reality or dead or alive or…

“So…” Tony’s voice startled him out of the path his mind has been spiralling down. He hadn’t even realised they had begun to walk towards Natasha and Peter. “Is baby brother still trying to talk with you?”

Thor hummed, listening for the voice that had been plaguing him since he had walked into the cave. Miraculously, it was quiet for once.

“Not at the moment.”

“ _I am still here. I just refuse to be commanded to speak like a dog,”_ the Loki voice said waspishly, in a way that was just so very _Loki_ that Thor couldn’t help but smile.

“Never mind, it spoke again.”

“ _I am not an ‘it’.”_

Tony looked at him with a quirked brow. “What’s he saying?”

Thor scratched at his beard, inwardly cringing a bit at talking about his madness so frankly. “Well… it just complained about me.”

“Typical little brother,” Tony snorted.

Thor gave a tight, ghost of a smile. “Most of the time though, it tells me to turn back, and that I should have never entered the cave.”

The billionaire looked immediately less relaxed. His face paled, his fingers clenched anxiously at the strap of his backpack. His eyes flickered around the cave, as if he suddenly thought something was going to jump out and attack him. And maybe it was… Thor didn’t quite know. “That’s a little creepy,” he murmured.

“Do not worry too much, friend Stark, I am sure that it is simply my own anxieties taking form.” Thor hoped it was merely that, but he did find himself double-checking to make sure Verity was still on his hip.

He could not deny that this place was messing with his mind. The darkness was constantly at the edge of his vision. The small space created by the rocks encroaching upon him, and made him feel pressed on all sides.

He also felt constantly watched, as if there were eyes continually upon him. It made him look closely at shadows, and be suspicious of simple rocks.

Thor jerked as the feeling of being watched got suddenly strong, whipping around and sure he was going to see an enemy right behind him.

There was nothing.

Or, at least, it seemed like nothing.

If he squinted and focussed enough, he could make out a blur—a subtle, barely-there, blip in reality.

He did not want to think about what it meant that he was beginning to see things in addition to hearing them.

“What are you two doing back there?” Natasha’s voice rang down the tunnel.

“We better hurry up,” Tony said while picking up his pace. “I know that she is scarier than any cave could ever be.”

Thor huffed a laugh. “You are not wrong about that.”

He ignored the blur, even as it grew. Even as it took shape.

The group kept wandering forward, and Thor very much doubted that they were heading towards an exit.

The rocks on the walls were getting smoother and showed more signs of intentional alteration. The ever-present symbols continued to grow more numerous and elaborate. Thor hated the way they seemed to stare at him from the wall, their lines and curves creating the illusion of hundreds of small eyes.

They were passing structures Thor was sure that they had never seen before, but he didn’t have the courage to voice what was becoming increasingly clear.

The cave had somehow trapped them.

Thor didn’t know how. Surely, it must have been some device of magic; it was the only way that the cave could have been altered around them without their knowledge.

But knowing it was magic was near useless without knowing any specifics of it. Thor grappled with trying to remember childhood lessons from his “Introduction to Seidr” classes. There were spells, rituals, rites, potions, and…

He almost growled trying to remember magic basics. It had been centuries since he had needed this information. And he had always had Loki—clever Loki who knew seidr like the back of his hand—who would grumble and growl at first, but then melt into enthusiasm as he told Thor exactly what he had learned.

He realised now that perhaps he relied too much on Loki. Missing him was like missing a limb.

He had thought that maybe all these years of death and resurrection and death again would have hardened his heart against Loki’s absence.

And, even though a decade of betrayal lay between them, there were still centuries upon centuries of brotherhood, and the brief time on the _Statesman_ that had reignited the hope that they could be brothers again.

That’s why it hurt so much more when that hope got ripped away, crushed alongside with his brother’s delicate throat.

“ _Brother, you are looking melancholy again,”_ the voice that could not possibly be Loki’s said with a tenderness his brother rarely used.

His companions were far ahead of him, and because of that, he allowed himself to look in the direction of the voice.

He expected to see nothing, like every time he had looked before.

But now…

But now there was definitely something.

It was hard to make out, ephemeral and delicate, but also vaguely Aesir-shaped. It almost seemed like smoke.

A smoke that was slowly coming into focus.

By the Norns, he really was going mad.

He turned, unwilling to look at the shape any longer and further confirm his own madness.

He rushed to catch up with his friends, looking behind to make sure the figment wasn’t following him (Was he truly fleeing from smoke now? How low had he fallen?) Thankfully, the figure did not seem keen on chasing after him.

Within a couple of minutes, he found them all staring at a portion of the wall.

“What have you found?” he asked. His voice startled Young Peter, who looked back at him with huge eyes. He didn’t miss the way they filled with a bit of relief as Thor approached. The boy was keeping it together well, but it was becoming obvious that the cave was taking its toll on him.

“We…um…there’s a disturbing cave painting,” he said as he visibly shuddered. Thor had the urge to wrap him in one of the blankets that he was carrying in his pack.

He settled for placing a comforting hand on Peter’s shoulder. The boy looked up with a shaky smile.

After this adventure was finished, maybe Thor could inquire about becoming the boy’s uncle. Or perhaps his godfather? He already had the “god” part, he wondered what he needed to fulfil the “father” aspect.

He looked beyond that boy and had to suppress a shiver of his own.

On the wall, in the style of the furious etching that had littered the cave to this point, was the depiction of a monster. The shapes Thor had gotten familiar with seeing had all twisted, warping themselves into a terrifying and ghastly image. It was large, creeping, bent-over, and menacing with hands that curled into talons and a body that was completely the wrong proportions.

It seemed to be crouched over someone, either a human or an Asgardian, like it was preparing to tear them open.

“Mr. Thor,” Peter’s voice came from his left. He didn’t take his eyes off the image though. “Is this that creature from the legend? The one the barkeeper told us about?”

 _A Jotunn._ His mind helpfully supplied, and the word did actually send a shiver down his back.

To tell the truth, this depiction was not far off from the ones that had been in his childhood storybooks. The ones that showed Jotnar as gnarled things that crept into Aesir homes to steal babies and feast upon their flesh. The ones Thor had sworn to exterminate.

_When I’m king, I’ll hunt the monsters down and slay them all!_

They were the words of a child, but they had echoes. Echoes into his adolescence and echoes into his adulthood. It took him far too long to release that those echoes needed to cease.

Now when he heard the word, the images of his childhood fears still came into his head, but they were also littered with Loki. Loki asleep. Loki as a child. Loki, blood-spattered and panting, trying to protect the remnants of Asgard. Loki who berated him and fought him with the same burning intensity that he loved him.

Loki who had thought himself damned to be a monster when he was the furthest thing from it.

He had done nothing to stop Loki’s death. Just like he hadn’t done anything to stop Mother’s…or Father’s…or Heimdall’s…or the Warrior Three’s…or

No. He could not dwell on this now. Not with the dark pushing at him on all sides, and his potential madness looming large in his own head.

His friends could not afford him having such a weakness, so he had to push it down to deal with it later. That was the hero they needed him to be.

“Whatever Picasso here was trying to get across is obviously fake.” Stark’s voice snapped their eyes away from the painting. “So, I say we all just keep moving forward and try not to think about it. We don’t need to be going around here, freaking ourselves out about every little thing we see.”

“I agree,” Natasha said, “the faster we move, the faster we are going to get out of here. Anyways.” She stole a look at the watch on her wrist. “It’s late afternoon outside, and I don’t want to be here through the night.”

“Well, it’s not as if it can get any darker,” Tony muttered as they began walking again.

Thor took up his position at the rear of their pack. Before it got out of sight, Thor looked back at the painting. The grisly depiction of the Jotunn looked even worse at an angle—longer and more misshaped.

Beside it, the smoke that Thor had seen earlier was taking shape. It was growing, forming, and sharpening into focus. Instead of looking amorphous, it was becoming the familiar shape of an Aesir.

And not just any Asgardian…

Thor’s eyes widened as he drank in the sight of his brother muttering and carefully tracing the lines of the symbols on the wall. He didn’t know how long he stood there watching, but the footsteps of his companions had long faded away, leaving only him and his hallucination. 

The image was not perfect. Some parts of Loki still seemed to fade into nothingness (One of his legs was entirely invisible), but the more he looked, the stronger the delusion seemed to get.

His heart was beating rapidly in his chest and it seemed like the entire world had splintered, leaving only this moment. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what to think. But he did know that it was painful seeing him, like something inside him was being torn apart and put together at the same time.

The Loki in front of him sighed a familiar, heavy sound. It suddenly struck Thor how tired he looked. Exhaustion hung off his body, he moved slower than usual and Thor could glimpse dark circles under his eyes from his profile.

He turned, probably to continue after Thor, and froze when they locked eyes.

Everything in him seized as if a sword had been impaled through his chest.

It was Loki. Here in front of him. Breathing.

( _not broken and cast off. thrown on the floor as if he was nothing. pushed to the side as if he was nothing. crumpled and left like he was nothing. like he wasn’t the only thing keeping thor together. like he…)_

His mind tried to find words, but his world swam with memories. Everything was blank. Everything was on fire, filling with the smoke and the stench of the _Statesman_ burning and crumbling around him _._ He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t move. He could barely breathe.

But, inside him, something that had been broken and ugly, seemed to click back into place, and his world felt a little more whole.

He didn’t want to know what it meant for a hallucination to bring him stability. To finally make him feel like he wasn’t constantly drowning.

“Thor?” Loki’s voice was tentative and small, the exact opposite of how he was used to hearing it. But it was there. So real and there that Thor’s own voice hitched into a wet sob.

Why would his own mind do this to him? Was it a glutton for the pain that imagining Loki brought? Did it enjoy tearing him to pieces and reminding him constantly how broken he was?

Because seeing Loki again _hur_ t, even though Thor knew that losing him again (because that was destiny wasn’t it? For Thor to continuously, and mercilessly lose him each time) would hurt even more.

“You’re not real.” The words came back slowly and unsatisfactorily. They were so wrong, but he was so shattered that “wrong” seemed to be the only thing he was capable of. He forced his eyes down, unable to look at his brother any longer.

He heard Loki’s breath hitch. “But I am, Thor, I am. I’m here.”

“No, you’re not,” Thor snapped, grief turning towards anger. Anger at the world and the cave and the voice and the image of Loki breathing in front of him. But, most of all, anger at himself for being fooled by it. “You’re not. You’re dead. I’m just imagining this.”

He still refused to look at the apparition.

“No, you are not,” Loki growled, frustration leaking into him. It was an achingly familiar dynamic; they were always great at riling each other up, even at the most inopportune moments. “I am dead, but I am _here,_ Thor.”

“You’re not.”

“Yes, I am. I am here. I’ve been following you for hours and I am _not_ letting you stand there and ignore me.” He only seemed to be getting angrier, his voice was beginning to take that shrill tone that Thor knew he hated. He had to suppress a small smile at hearing it again, his heart aching with the sound.

“Loki, there’s nothing I want more in the world than for you to be here. But must I rip my heart out every time I believe you are here and am inevitably proven wrong?”

There was silence, and Thor was about to walk away. Maybe this time, he had finally shut the voice up and he could put his demons to bed.

But then, Loki spoke, soft and fragile: “Thor, look at me.”

Thor wasn’t brave enough to follow the order.

“Thor, look at me,” he repeated, this time edged with a sob, and even now, the sound hurt Thor more than any dagger ever could.

This time he did look.

Loki was stunningly and miraculously whole. The bits of him that had been invisible previously were filled in and as complete as Thor’s memory of him.

Their eyes met again, and Thor realised that both of them were on the brink of tears.

Loki was playing with his hands, anxiously twitching his fingers. Suddenly, he started talking rapid-fire in that nervous babbling that he reserved only for Thor.

“I am real, Thor. I grew up with you. I know that you wanted to be a Valkyrie when you grew up, and when my shapeshifting abilities developed, you were jealous of my female form because of that.” He hesitated and made a motion with his hands, pulling out a cracked compass. “I, I, I broke this when we were both around 500 years old.” Thor recognised it instantly. It had been a birthday gift from Mother, and had mysteriously disappeared one day. He had been convinced that he lost it and was distraught about it for years. Loki made another similar motion, and the compass disappeared. He kept babbling on. “I was too embarrassed to say anything, so I hid it and never told you what happened. When we were young, I used to wake you up so I could drag you to the library with me because I was afraid of the ghosts that the older boys told us wandered the halls.”

He chuckled and it was a wet, harsh sound. “I guess it is ironic that the Norns fated me to become one.”

Loki held out his hands and looked down at his own arms. Thor could see now that they were faintly see-through.

His brother’s eyes met his again, and they searched his face. Thor could see that he was obviously trying to flatten his expression, but couldn’t quite get it right.

“Thor,” he said, sounding incredibly small again, “brother, please say something.”

He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know whether he could make his body do anything at this moment. All he seemed capable of doing was staring at Loki.

But Loki was looking at him with pleading eyes, and Thor forced himself to say something.

“Loki, you’re… you are here.”

Loki nodded. “Yes.” Then, he amended, “Mostly, I’m not quite—” he reached a hand out and then _literally_ put his other hand through it “—solid.”

Thor couldn’t help but chuckle a little bit at that. “Like one of your illusions?”

“Unwillingly so.”

The thunder god walked forward until he was nearly nose-to-nose with his brother. Blood pounded in his head, and his heart seemed nearly able to burst from his chest. Up close, however, it was clear that this was his brother, complete with all his habits and particularities and all the things that endeared Loki to him.

He reached a hand up and tried to poke Loki in the forehead.

It was a little disturbing how easily his hand passed through Loki’s head as if there wasn’t anything there at all.

Loki’s face scrunched in annoyance. “You oaf, I just showed you that I wasn’t physical.”

Thor ignored the jab, and stuck his whole arm through Loki’s chest, still feeling absolutely nothing. “Do you feel that?”

His brother made an inelegant yelp and backed up a step. “No. Yes. Sort of. It kind of tingles and I don’t love seeing something going through my body.” A flash of memory went through his head: the Kursed blade, Loki crumpling on the ground, the long, jagged scar on his chest that he couldn't get rid of with magic. Guilt swelled up like a wave. It was another time he failed his brother and left him for dead. He didn’t intend on leaving Loki again.

Loki was muttering and smoothing down his clothes, even though they obviously weren’t physical or ruffled by Thor’s hand.

“Stand still,” Thor said, approaching Loki again.

“What?”

“Stand still.”

And amazingly, Loki did

Thor shuffled forward, Loki watching him like a hawk as he did. Thor carefully assessed his brother and his position, and then, cautiously, brought his hands up to make a circle around Loki’s body.

It wasn’t perfect. Thor couldn’t feel his brother at all, and he knew part of his left arm was dipping through Loki’s waist.

But when he looked to the side, he saw Loki’s familiar tangle of black curls and the curve of his shoulders; he could fool himself into imagining his brother’s warmth in his arms. And it was enough.

Thor wept with the hug, feeling all the grief of missing Loki spill forth with the tears.

“Thor, you can’t.” Loki’s own voice was catching in his throat. “You can’t hug me.”

He chuckled, carefully repositioning his hands so they would have been at Loki’s shoulder blades. His hand reached for the nape of his brother’s neck. If he were physical, he would have guided Loki’s head into the crook of his neck, their usual position for their rare hugs.

Whether it was by habit or by Thor’s imperceivable guidance, Loki did lean his cheek into Thor’s collarbone.

Thor couldn’t feel it—it might have been that he was hugging air. His arms ached at being held in such a strange position with nothing to rest on to. Loki, though, had mentioned that he could feel it slightly, and Thor would pretend to hug him forever if it meant Loki could feel a bit more settled by it.

Anyways, just seeing Loki, whole and unhurt and so close to alive, made Thor feel more complete. The ache of grief was still wedged in his heart, but now, with Loki by his side again, it didn’t feel like it was eating him alive.

“Loki, I believe I am hugging you already,” he said gently and watched his brother’s shoulders shudder. He couldn’t see it, but his brother must have been crying as much as he was.

“I was alone.” Loki’s voice was shaky and quiet enough that Thor almost missed it. “I was so alone and I thought… I thought… this time might be final. But then, I was here, but it was like the world wasn’t because I couldn’t touch anything or change anything. And when you started saying that I wasn’t real, I began to doubt it myself.”

Thor desperately wanted to tighten his arms but kept them still. “I am glad that you proved me wrong, brother. You have always had a talent for it, but I cannot say there has been a time I was more grateful for it.”

Loki laughed, sounding a bit lighter. They stood together for a moment more before Loki moved back, breaking the hug by simply going straight through Thor’s hold.

Thor’s eyes widened, and he dropped his arms to his side. “That is strange.”

“Tell me about it,” Loki snorted, composing himself back into a proud figure. His brother was apparently still vain, even if he was a ghost that only Thor could see.

“I believe you should catch-up with your companions,” Loki said. “They must be wondering if you’ve gotten lost in the cave system or something equally as stupid.”

Thor flushed, looking down the tunnel that the team had chosen to follow. It had been a rather long time since he had stopped trailing them; they were probably worried and searching for him.

He glanced back at his brother, who was still remarkably _there,_ even if he was a bit see-through _._

Loki made a shooing motion with his hand. “Do not worry, you great oaf, I will continue to stay beside you. I’ve come back from the dead for the third time now. You cannot get rid of me so easily.”

Thor didn’t bother trying to hold back his grin.

Loki gave him an affectionate scoff and began striding in the direction that the other Avengers had gone. Thor practically bounced to his side, relishing in the sight of Loki at his right hand once more.

“Loki, if I may ask some questions?” he said, his voice filled with the sheer excitement of being with his brother again.

The younger prince rolled his eyes. “I can hardly stop you.”

“I am overjoyed to see you again surely, but I cannot help but ask, how?”

Loki slowed his steps a bit, and Thor followed suit. His brother’s face was crinkled in concentration. “To be honest, I do not know myself. All I can say is that something is strange here. Something dangerous is lurking in these walls and it is changing the veil between life and death itself.”

He turned to Thor levelling him with a serious gaze. “Thor, you must be careful in this place. I do not know what it is, but something is here, and it knows you are here too.”

It was certainly grim news, but Thor was not surprised. He had felt that creeping sense of _wrong_ ever since he had approached the cave, and Loki must have felt it too. In fact, he probably felt it more so due to his own internal magic.

He reached out, pretending to place his hand on his brother’s shoulder. Loki looked down at the fake touch, before meeting Thor’s eyes again. He could see the unease in them, the chips of fear that Loki was trying to tamp down.

“Do not worry, brother. I will remain on my guard and I have you by my side again.”

“Yes, but I am only half here and I would hardly be an asset in battle.”

Thor’s lip quirked. “Someone very wise once told me that battles are often won by minds more than swords,” he said, parroting Loki’s own words back to him, “which means you remain a great asset still.”

Loki was silent, but Thor didn’t miss his slight smile. Without another word, they both began to walk forward again.

He opened his mouth to ask another question, but the voices of his companions startled him.

“Thor!” That was Tony’s voice, and he could hear both Natasha’s and Peter’s beyond it.

He glanced back to Loki. “Do you know if they will see you?”

His little brother only shrugged, crossing his arms over his chest. “I guess we will find out.” Thor rolled his eyes.

His brother was always one for drama.

“Friends, I am here!” He shouted down the tunnel, and instantly the voices clamoured together as they rushed towards him.

Tony was the first to reach him, looking out of breath and sweaty. “Dammit, Thor, we’re going to have to put a leash on you.” Natasha and Peter soon appeared behind him, looking similarly relieved.

“Hey,” Natasha greeted, “glad to see you’re okay. Did you get turned around?”

Thor hesitated, risking a glance to his brother who was standing a bit off to the side. The other Avengers obviously didn’t see him or sense his presence, and he wasn’t sure if he should reveal him to them. Without proof, they would only think he had gone truly mad, and he was done with doubting his own sanity.

He hated making his brother more invisible than he already was, but at this point, there didn’t seem like another option. Not until he found a way to truly prove that his brother was there (even as a ghost).

“I am sorry. I thought that I had found something useful within the runes, and I stopped to inspect them further. I did not realise so much time had passed.”

Loki shifted, crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Yes, that ‘something useful’ was me.”

Thor fought not to react. This was going to be difficult. He was so used to conducting his actions according to Loki’s, to be constantly pushing and pulling against what his brother did and knowing that Loki did the same. On missions like this, they were a constant and often deadly team.

And now, he was being forced to ignore the near millennium of training and instincts that made him so in tune with his brother. Disregarding just Loki’s voice was hard, and now seeing him and being unable to respond was going to be near impossible. And Thor knew he was a terrible actor.

“Thor, say something. Do not keep standing there looking constipated. Act normal,” Loki snapped, and Thor jolted like he had been shocked.

Thor suddenly didn’t know where to put his hands or if the position he was standing in looked normal at all. He flailed a bit, tried to settle with his hands clasped in front of him (was this a normal way to stand? How had he suddenly forgotten how to stand?) and desperately wished he had Mjolnir to clutch. He eventually found himself in an awkward half-lean against a wall and pointedly not looking at Loki.

“Yes, forgive me, friends, and let us continue on our mission.” He boomed way too loudly, and his voice rang all around the cave. His companions were gazing at him in disbelief.

Beside him, Loki had put his head in his hands, caught between groaning in exasperation or bursting out in laughter.

Yes, this was going to be impossible.

“Okay… well that was completely normal,” Tony said, matter-of-factly. Thor felt his face begin to flush with embarrassment.

“The point still stands, though, we need to keep moving forward so we can leave,” Natasha said, redirecting them all back to their goal. Thor mentally thanked her for taking the attention off of him.

They continued walking for about another hour. It was mostly quiet except for the occasional comments from his companions or a quip from Loki.

Thor didn’t love the walking, but he did enjoy the sense of familiarity. As if this was simply another mission of many, but before his world was constantly being torn apart.

It was getting late, though. The cave was deceptively dark, but Thor could feel the exhaustion settling into his bones. A quick glance at his clock told him that it was nearly 8 p.m. and that they had been in the cave for approximately twelve hours now.

He was just about to ask Natasha what their plans for the night were when something flickered ahead of them.

At the far end of the cave was a light, dancing and glimmering.

“Does everyone else see the light at the end of the tunnel?” Peter said, moving close to Tony. Unconsciously, Stark angled his body protectively in front of the boy’s.

“Yes,” Natasha said as she slipped into a defensive posture. Silently, she reached for one of the guns she had hidden on her.

Tony also triggered some weapons from his suit, the nanites covering his arms and preparing to be deployed.

Thor reached towards his hip, dispelling the guise on Verity and drawing the sword from her scabbard. He smiled a bit when Loki blinked in shock at seeing the sword, fully completed and gleaming.

Natasha inched forward first with the careful grace of an assassin. As they got closer, she signalled to them to shut off their lights, so they wouldn’t give away their positions. The firelight from the end of the tunnel illuminated the cave enough for them to see anyways.

The cave tunnel seemed to widen and give way to the cavern that the light was coming from. They stopped before they entered, listening for the scuffle of an enemy or another creature, but the only sounds were the dripping of water in the cave and their own breaths.

Slowly, Natasha entered the cavern, motioning for them to follow. She relaxed a bit when it became obvious that they were the only souls in there.

The cavern was huge and lit by nearly a dozen sconces that circled them. The runes littered the wall, but gave way to a massive image, painted on the far wall of the cavern. It was the creature in monstrous proportions and fine detail. Its misshaped body twisted into crouch, as if it was going to leap off the wall and feast upon them. It was snarling, face obscured by a wild mane of hair. Two ferocious red eyes glared out of the darkness, almost glowing in the firelight.

They were the eyes of a monster.

 _Or a Jotunn…_ A traitorous part of himself whispered, and he glanced at his brother, almost afraid that Loki could hear his vile thoughts.

His brother remained still, though, gazing up at the depiction with a look of apprehension.

“Great,” Tony muttered, “just what we need, more creepy finger paintings.”

Peter approached the wall, carefully touching on the etched runes. “I wonder what they mean.”

Thor desperately wanted to ask Loki, sure that his brother would have some ideas about what it could be, but remained quiet. He could ask when they were both alone.

“What I want to know is, which one of them tells us where the exit is?” His eyes tracked up and down the lines of runes, skittering over the picture of the monster. “We’ve been walking towards the exit for hours, and it only seems like we are getting more and more lost.”

“You’re right,” Natasha agreed, putting her gun back in its belt and shrugging the backpack off her shoulders. “We should camp here for the night. The fire will at least provide us some warmth, and conserve the batteries on our lights.”

“Yeah, but what if whoever lit the lights comes back.” Peter looked around nervously. Thor watched his eyes catch on where Loki was standing, pausing there for a couple of moments before moving again.

Natasha shrugged, rolling out the blanket from her pack. “Then, we will be ready for them. We are not defenceless.”

Loki snorted. “Those could be famous last words.” He moved to sit with his back against a wall, the large image of the monster leering over him.

Thor had the sudden urge to drag him away from it, lest the creature descend upon him and tear him apart.

The group began to settle as much as they could, though no one seemed entirely comfortable with the red eyes of the monster glaring down at them.

Tony took the first watch, and the Spider-child lay by his side, quietly whispering questions up to him. Stark kept trying to tell him to sleep, but there was affection in his tone. Natasha lay down on Peter’s other side, silently listening to his murmurs before she closed her eyes.

Thor decided to settle across from them. The ground wasn’t comfortable, but he had slept on worse. It wasn’t the hard floor that was going to keep him up, anyway.

It was an elusive, slippery thing though, and he found that he couldn’t make his heart calm its frantic beating. The cave still crowded around him. The growing sense of _wrong_ still lingered at the edge of his mind. The fiery gaze of the creature (not a Jotunn, it wasn’t a Jotunn) loomed threateningly over him.

He couldn’t stop himself from wondering if he was ever going to leave this cave.

He had resigned himself to a sleepless night when there was a rustle only he could hear. He shifted and watched as his brother slinked over to him with the grace of a cat.

Their eyes met, but they didn’t say anything as Loki had moved to lay beside him, seemingly trying to get some sleep of his own. He didn’t know whether ghosts actually slept or whether Loki was simply pretending for his own peace of mind, but it was working. His brother’s familiar presence was lulling the anxiety within him and keeping the worst of his thoughts at bay.

It took longer than it should, but eventually, he slipped into a light sleep as he counted Loki’s breaths. 

For the first time since he watched his brother’s life be choked out in front of him, he didn’t dream of fire and death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was really fun to write. I totally didn't plan for Thor and Loki to hug so early in the story, but they demanded it. The brothers (and their bickering) are so much fun to write in this and I just cannot get enough of them.
> 
> I hope that you all enjoyed it and are excited for the next chapter! There's still a lot of creepy things to come, and we haven't even gotten to the things that lurk in the darkness ; )
> 
> Next chapter is coming very soon! I have about 6k words written of it and I think I might add another 2k or so before it is finished. Plus I have about 1.5k of Chapter 5 written and another 1.5k of the last chapter. So yeah! A lot of work has gone into this story and I hope to share it with you very soon! It's probably not going to be all written by Halloween lol, but we will get there eventually. 
> 
> This story was supposed to be 10k words... right now my working doc is 30k words long... and it keeps getting longer. 
> 
> Whelp. I hope you readers are enjoying the ride! Visit me at [ SalParadiseLost ](https://salparadiselost.tumblr.com) for up general musings and random fandom content. Please leave a kudos and comment! Flattery gets you everywhere.


	4. The Echoes in the Wall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor and Loki get protective and splitting up from the group is always a bad idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone and Happy Halloween!!
> 
> I absolutely love spooky season and I'm sad to see it come to an end. This story isn't ending though and we will continue on! 
> 
> As always, thank you so much to my comma fairy, Sundial_at_Night. She's the real MVP here and takes this story to the next level.
> 
> Well, don't stay here and listen to me, go and read!

Chapter 4: The Echoes in the Walls 

Thor woke up slowly, blinking into the firelight. The cave looked exactly as it had when he had fallen asleep, dark but full of the flickering dance of light. It was strange to wake and have the world be essentially unchanged around him.

But the light belied the fact that Thor’s world had majorly shifted yesterday, and, somehow, something he had thought gone forever had been returned.

The something snuffled in his sleep, rolled on to his back, and murmured nonsense.

Thor chuckled, sitting up and stretching out his spine. Sleeping on the ground was necessary sometimes, but his back protested every time he did it. He stifled a yawn, still feeling a bit half-asleep, and leaned over to instinctively shake his brother awake.

Of course, his hand went right through Loki, and, because he thought his brother’s weight would be there and it suddenly wasn’t, he fell on his face through Loki’s chest.

Ah yes, he had forgotten that detail.

Loki’s eyes instantly snapped open, and he yelped scrambling away from Thor as he clutched at his chest. Loki looked so flustered in that moment, with his hair a complete mess and a small spot of dried drool on his chin, that Thor couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

“What in the Hel!” Loki barked, fighting to get some composure while Thor still chuckled on the floor. “What were you even trying to do?”

“Sorry, sorry,” he managed between laughs, “I was trying to wake you up and I forgot that you weren’t all there. But it worked at least.”

Loki narrowed his eyes and closely resembled a disgruntled cat. Thor tried to swallow his laughter, but couldn’t quite do so, and eventually Loki just turned away from him with a huff.

Oh, how had he missed his brother.

“Hey, Thor, buddy, who are you talking to?” Tony’s voice came from directly behind him, making both brothers turn to see all the rest of the team staring at them.

“Oh look, you’ve managed to confirm your insanity to them,” Loki drawled, looking a bit too happy about it with the infuriatingly mischievous smirk plastered over his face

Thor shot his brother a side-eyed glare before clearing his throat. “I am sorry, friends, I was just waking from a dream with my brother in it and I was not quite fully awake. Do not worry it was simple sleep ramblings.”

The team stared at him for another moment before Tony visibly shrugged, and they all left to collect up their camp site.

Loki watched before standing up and raising his arms over his head in a long stretch. “That lie was not half bad, brother.”

Thor turned so his back was to the Avengers and spoke to Loki under his breath. “I have learned some things from you.”

“Amazing that you’ve learned anything with your rock of a brain.”

Thor gave Loki a long, exasperated look that contradicted all the affection welling up in him. He had _missed_ this dearly. “Truly brilliant, brother, another quip against my intelligence. Your best work. Perhaps while you think of other clever remarks, you can wipe the dried spit off your face.”

He turned away smiling to himself, while he listened to Loki muttering about how he didn’t “spit in his sleep”.

Thor was carefully tucking his blanket into his pack when Natasha cleared her throat to get their attention.

“I think we should split up,” she announced, holding her head high. She had already shrugged her backpack on and looked ready to take on the world.

Thor, meanwhile, was still trying to shake the last of sleep from his bones.

“That seems like a bad idea,” Tony mumbled, his pack ready, but his eyes still a bit half-lidded.

“We need to cover more ground and this cavern has three passages.” She pointed to one of them. “We came from that one, so there’s two left, and I think we need to split up to search for the missing people or at least find any clues as to which direction they might have gone.”

Peter raised his hand like he was in a class, and Natasha looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “Yes, Peter.”

“How do we make sure we don’t get lost?”

“We use the buddy system, and you will always be with your partner. I’m going with Tony, and you will go with Thor. We each choose a path and walk in one direction for an hour, after that we turn around and come right back here to report. Everyone got that?”

There were nods all around, accompanied by Loki complaining about how this was a terrible idea. Natasha was right, though, they needed to expand their search area in order to find the lost people. Although the cave paintings and the symbols were creepy, there hadn’t been anything dangerous in the caves thus far.

Well, except whatever Loki had been cryptically warning about.

But they were all strong capable warriors; Thor was sure that they would be an even match for any foes they could encounter, and if they needed help, he would gladly give it.

“Thor,” Loki hissed in his ear and moved to be right in front of his face. “You must not split up. It is too dangerous.”

He made sure the other Avengers weren’t listening. Tony and Natasha were talking to each other, and Peter seemed to be studying the cave painting again.

“I do not like it either, but we do not have a choice. There are people that need our help.”

Loki rolled his eyes. “There are always people that need your help, and I won’t tolerate you charging into battle for every one of them.”

Thor gave his brother a long look. Loki was pointedly not meeting Thor’s eyes and was standing with his arms crossed on his chest. For most people he would just look irate, but Thor glanced down at his fingers and saw that he was indeed twitching them anxiously. He had inherited that from Mother; Thor wasn’t even sure whether Loki recognised the habit himself, but it was one of the only tells that he had.

Loki was truly anxious about this, Thor realised.

When he was younger, he wouldn’t have noticed. Loki’s worry was like glass, and he would have crashed right without thinking for a second how the shards could lodge in his brother’s heart.

But now, when everything in his world seemed so delicate, he swore to himself not to break this too.

“Loki.” His brother jolted at his name as if he was surprised to hear it. Thor met his eyes, and he was suddenly overcome with a fierce wave of protectiveness. This was his little brother, he should never look so unsure.

“I will not put myself into needless danger,” he promised, aching to his hand on Loki’s neck to guide his forehead against him in a familiar, brotherly act of affirmation.

He couldn’t touch Loki though, so he forced his hands to zip up his backpack and put it on his back. “Anyways, you will be with me to inevitably complain about every decision I make. I will not be alone.”

Then, he added after a thought, “Stark’s charge, Peter, is also coming with us too.”

“The child?”

“I’m under the impression that he’s a very special child. He’s also quite enjoyable to be around. You will like him.”

“So your royal guard for this expedition is composed of a ghost who can’t touch things and a boy who isn’t even fully out of adolescence.”

Thor nodded. “Yes.”

Loki shot him a deadpan expression. “You will be unstoppable.”

Thor gave him a huge, bright grin. “My thoughts exactly.”

His brother started, obviously trying to figure out if Thor was being sincere or sarcastic. He opened his mouth to say something else, but was interrupted by Peter walking up to them.

“I’m ready to go Mr. Thor,” he mumbled, still trying to shake off the last bits of sleep. He gave Thor a groggy smile before rubbing at his eyes.

“I am ready too,” Thor said as began to step towards the cavern that Natasha had told them to explore. Tony and Natasha were already at their cavern, and he gave them a wave as they started their journey.

Nerves began to bubble in his stomach as he watched them disappear into the tunnel’s darkness.

Two hours. They would be reunited again in two hours, and everything would be fine.

Everything would be fine.

Thor wondered how many times he would have to repeat the worlds until they started sounding possible.

He turned to get Peter’s attention and saw the boy staring vaguely at the place Loki was standing. He wasn’t focussing on his brother, more like looking through him, but it was definitely in his direction. The boy was obviously confused with his head cocked, and Loki peered down his nose at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Peter?”

The boy whipped around, looking guilty as if he’d been caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to.

He couldn’t be seeing Loki. Could he? Peter wasn’t exactly _looking_ at his brother, but it was too coincidental to be nothing. The child had shown some signs of perception also.

He would have to keep an eye on him, and no doubt, Loki would also be scrutinising the boy.

“Is something wrong?” Thor asked, regarding the Spider-child carefully.

“Nope, nope. Everything’s fine. Everything’s a-okay. I am fine,” he stuttered as he came up behind Thor. Loki lurked behind with a faintly amused smile.

Peter’s charm was already working on his brother, so it seemed.

“Then, we shall be off,” Thor declared, stomping in the tunnel. “Young Peter, please start the timer on your eye-pod!”

“Alright,” Peter laughed, and the eye-pod chirped, signalling that it was starting an hour-long timer.

They walked for about ten minutes in silence before Peter started asking questions.

“Hey, Mr. Thor, can I ask you what Asgard was like?” His voice was gentle and careful about the subject, knowing that it was still delicate for Thor.

Hearing Peter say the name sent a nostalgic ache deep in his heart. His soul ached for his home and the people that were part of it.

But he was pleasantly surprised that the name hadn’t sent a sword of grief through his chest like it had before.

“Asgard was my home and the most beautiful place that I have ever seen.” He sighed as visions of towering gold and shimmering blue flitted in his mind’s eye. “Princes are trained to love their homes and their people; our lives are destined to be committed to them.” He couldn’t help meeting Loki’s eyes briefly, and he was proud to see a small ghost of a smile on his brother’s face. “Asgard was not without its shadows, but I love it all the same, and I would gladly give my life to my kingdom if they needed it. Just as my brother had.”

“Wait, your brother sacrificed himself? I thought he was a bad guy?”

Thor winced and nearly stumbled as he walked. “No, he was not a bad guy. Loki was a hero. He sacrificed his life for mine twice and helped me make sure that our people escaped when Thanos attacked our ship.” Thor couldn’t help but meet Loki’s eyes. “He is difficult at times, but I love him dearly all the same.”

Peter’s eyebrows wrinkled together. “But then why did New York happen?”

Thor almost winced again, but managed to keep a straight face this time. He looked to Loki, silently asking permission, which his brother granted with a small nod. Peter kept looking towards the spot Loki was walking in.

“My brother wasn’t quite himself when he had come to New York. He had been in the hands of the Titan and his children, and Thanos had forced him to invade Midgard using the Mind Stone. I didn’t realise it until too late, and I’m sorry for that.”

He hadn’t said that to Loki in life, and it was one of his greatest regrets. He could say it now, though, now that his brother had been given back to him. He hoped that they might get another moment alone when he could say it more meaningfully.

Maybe he would be able to convince Loki that he could be the brother he deserved.

Maybe he would be able to convince himself.

Loki didn’t answer, but Thor hadn’t expected him too. His brother was often very closed off when it came to sharing emotions, getting them out of him was often like pulling teeth. Thor would have to get him alone to get him to open up.

They needed it though. There were still wounds between them, hurts that neither of them had spoken about, but both were acutely aware of.

They needed to tend to those wounds, though, lest they fester and break them apart. Thor had lost Loki too many times to lose him again to something as trifling as his own cowardice.

“Oh, so Mr. Loki is like Bucky?”

Thor jerked. He had kind of forgotten that the child was there. He didn’t recognise the name. Was that the man with the mechanical wings? The Avengers had added people to their group while Thor was off-planet, and he had a hard time keeping them straight in his head.

“Bucky?”

“Yeah, Bucky is Mr. America’s best friend, but he got captured by Hydra, an evil Nazi organisation, who manipulated him into being evil too. But he’s better now! We helped him break his mind control, and now he’s really cool, and he has this awesome metal arm.”

Peter flexed his own arm as demonstration. “So yeah, he’s not a bad guy anymore. Just like your brother. I wish I had gotten the chance to meet him.”

The boy met Thor’s eyes with so much complete sincerity that it warmed his heart. So many people would only ever consider Loki a villain, even after his name was cleared from the attacks in New York (Thor suspected that Loki still thought himself a villain too), so seeing this boy accept Loki so willingly filled him with more gratefulness than he thought possible. He felt that familiar surge of big brother protectiveness wash over him.

“Thank you for saying that,” Thor said with complete honesty, “My brother would have liked to meet you.”

“Yes, I really would have,” Loki agreed with a gentleness in his voice as he smiled at the boy. It seemed that Thor wasn’t the only one touched by Peter’s wholehearted acceptance.

Instead of replying to Thor, Peter’s eyes suddenly widened, and he whipped around to face the direction that Loki’s voice had come from.

“Who said that?” he barked, hands clenched into fists at his sides.

Both brothers just stared in shock.

“Mr. Thor, did you hear that? You must have heard that. It came from right there.” He pointed to where Loki was standing.

Thor met Loki’s eyes over Peter’s head.

He mouthed silently, “Do we tell him?”

Loki shrugged, dipping his head towards the boy. “I guess it cannot hurt. _”_

He hesitated, glancing between his brother and Peter again. Loki looked slightly wary, though that was typical for him. Peter, the poor boy, looked like he was borderline panicking and definitely doubting his sanity.

Thor knew that torment well, and he didn’t want Peter to go through it as well.

“Peter,” he said and came up to stand next to the child, silently offering support. He placed a hand on the boy’s shoulders and below his palm, he felt his muscles shudder. He wouldn’t be surprised if the boy was close to tears.

“Be settled. I hear him too.”

Peter’s eyes got impossibly wider as he gazed up at the thunder god. “Him?”

“Yes, the voice is my brother speaking from beyond the grave.”

Loki snorted, moving towards him in a fluid motion. “You make it sound so dramatic. Perhaps people will begin to start calling you the theatrical one.”

“I think not. After all, I was not the brother who wrote a play to honour himself _and_ commissioned a golden statue in his own image.”

The boy’s head swivelled between them as they bantered. He looked increasingly unsure about this whole situation, but Thor did hope that he would believe that his brother actually was here.

“So wait,” Peter said, forcing both brothers to give him their attention, “the voice is your brother?”

Thor nodded. “Forgive our manners.” He wanted to sling an arm over his brother’s shoulder, but settled for waving in Loki’s direction as if he was showing him off. Loki rolled his eyes, but there was a wisp of a smile on his lips.

“I introduce you to my brother, Loki the Crown Prince of Asgard, High Mage between the Nine Realms and the God of Mischief and Stories.”

Peter blinked, his eyes flickering to where Loki was standing, but not comprehending.

“Uh, hello Mr. Loki, it’s nice to meet you.” He said it like a question and Loki chuckled.

Thor watched as his brother’s body relaxed, and the tension released from his muscles. He considered Peter with an amused expression. That was a good sign, and, combined with the words Peter had unknowingly said of Loki earlier, he was well on his way to winning himself a place in Loki’s good graces. Peter didn’t know it either, but it was a powerful position to be in.

“It is a pleasure to meet you too, Young Peter. I thank you for helping me make sure that Thor does not do something incredibly stupid on this journey.”

“Hey,” Thor tried to defend himself, but Loki ignored him.

“You see, my brother is an incredible oaf with no skills of stealth, and has the unfortunate habit of throwing himself at every dangerous thing on the planet.

“ _Hey._ ”

“I am afraid if it wasn’t attached, he would lose that great pumpkin on his shoulders that he calls a head.”

Peter was giggling, though he was trying to cover it with a hand. His brother looked like he was also trying to hold back laughter as well. Thor couldn’t even find it in himself to be annoyed.

Because, despite all the irony of the situation, Loki looked more alive than he had in years.

Thor couldn’t help what he knew was a dopey smile. He didn’t ever think he would see Loki look like that again.

“Wait, Mr. Thor, do you _see_ him?”

“Oh, yes—” Thor paused “—I began seeing him yesterday. It was when you ‘lost’ me. Before that I only heard his voice.”

“OMG. Were you two having a moment?” Thor could have sworn Peter’s eyes started sparkling.

Loki tsk-ed. “We were not having a moment.”

He was always the contrary. They had definitely been having a moment.

“Really, brother?” Thor hummed. “So your eyes just happened to be watering at that exact moment?”

His brother gave him a clear look of betrayal. “Well at least I wasn’t blubbering like an idiot,” he shot back.

Thor couldn’t help a smile. He didn’t know how or why he had missed _bickering_ of all things so much.

But this rhythm of exchange was so familiar between them that Thor knew it as well as breathing. It made his heart ache with nostalgia and gratitude; nostalgia for Asgard and her dappled afternoons spent with Loki and his mischief, and gratitude that a piece of those days were back, even if he was a bit see-through and there was a gulf of unsaid hurt between them.

Peter, for his part, looked just about ready to burst with laughter. “You two are funny,” he said with a snicker.

Loki strode past both of them with a haughty wave of his hand. “I am funny. My brother is just funny looking.”

Thor ignored Loki’s taunt (an instance he was well-practiced in) and instead turned to Peter.

“Do you see any part of him? When I first began seeing him, I only could make out his shape,” he asked gently, putting a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

Peter hesitated and narrowed his eyes to focus on where Loki was.

“I see a blur, I think? It’s subtle, but if I focus on it, he becomes more solid.”

Thor nodded and scratched his beard. “That is what I saw as well, and I was able to see him shortly after. I imagine if you keep focussing on him, you will be able to see him soon.”

Loki made an annoyed sound from where he was standing down the tunnel. “Are you two going to forward with the very important mission?” Thor couldn’t see him, but he didn’t need to see him to know there was a smirk on his face.

Thor shared a silent, exasperated look with Peter. “If you do not want to see him, I do not blame you. He is quite the brat.”

“I can still hear you.” Loki yelled, and the boy began giggling again.

“We should follow him. He gets crankier the more he’s kept waiting.”

Together, they began walking towards his brother. When they approached, Loki was leaning against a rock, looking completely put out, like they had kept him waiting there for hours instead of minutes.

Peter was squinting furiously, obviously trying very hard to see Loki. Thor couldn’t help an affectionate smile and met Loki’s eyes over Peter’s head. He would never admit it, but Loki seemed charmed by the boy’s attempts. His brother did always have a soft spot for children, and that apparently hadn’t changed with his deaths.

“Oh, I think I see him a little bit!” Peter chirped, proud of himself. “He’s tall.”

Thor laughed and continued walking. “I guess he is. You know, young Spider-child, you may ask him questions, there’s nothing in the world he loves more than talking about himself.”

He caught a glimpse of Loki’s indignant expression. “No more so than yourself,” Loki playfully countered, and Thor snorted inelegantly.

“Oh, okay, um…” Peter took a second to think of a question. “Mr. Loki, sir, uh, what are you?”

Loki and Thor both stiffened. The boy didn’t know what his question meant, but it still brought up the ugly memories of finding out about Loki’s true heritage.

At least, Thor didn’t think that Peter knew what he had asked. Thor had mentioned to the Avengers that his brother was adopted, but he didn’t believe he said anything about the circumstances behind the act.

Peter continued before either of the brothers could ask him to clarify. “I mean, like I assume, you’re not always invisible, but I guess you could be. But if you’re not, then, what’s going on?”

Loki instantly relaxed when he realised what Peter was really asking.

“No, I am not usually invisible, though I can be if I want to,” he answered, and Peter’s eyes widened in wonder. “Right now, I am a ghost. I am quite dead, I believe, but the veil between life and death is thin in this cave.”

Peter seemed to be getting more and more amazed by the moment. “So wait, you’re not sure if you’re actually _dead_ dead?”

“I cannot be completely sure,” Loki admitted, his forehead crinkled in thought. “Even though I've slipped death’s noose multiple times, I’ve never been in a phantom state before.”

“That’s good, I guess. It would be bad to be really, _dead_ dead.” Peter paused, thinking this all over, until he suddenly brightened.

“Do you have any cool ghost powers?” There was clear, uninhibited excitement in his voice.

Loki tilted his head to the side, even though Peter couldn’t see it. The boy did seem to be focussing on him more though now, so maybe Loki was truly beginning to take shape for him.

“What constitutes a ‘cool ghost power’?”

“Um, like, can you move things with your mind, or possess someone, or, um, detach your own head?”

Loki looked at the boy like he was going completely insane. “Why in the Nine Realms would I want to decapitate myself?” he asked flatly.

“I don’t know! It’s a ghost thing,” Peter stammered. He scratched the back of his neck with a nervous laugh.

“Well, I do not know if I can do that, and I definitely will not be trying to. It sounds quite unpleasant.” He scrunched his nose in distaste at the mere thought.

“As for the other things you mentioned, I also do not know whether I can possess anyone, but even if I could, I would never do that to someone,” he added firmly, and Thor’s mind flashed back to New York. He winced at the memory and the hurt that the mind control caused them.

Loki continued quickly, not willing to bring up why he was against possession, “Telekinesis, though, is easy enough with seidr.”

Peter perked, and practically bounced close to the god, looking like an over-excited puppy. He must be seeing Loki more now, because he was coming up to Loki’s side.

“Really? Can you move something now?”

Loki hesitated, but he waved a hand. A small pebble from the ground floated into the air. Peter gazed at it in wonder as if it was the most amazing thing that he had witnessed in his life, and Thor didn’t miss Loki’s satisfied smirk at Peter’s reaction

Thor nearly laughed at the boy’s sheer awe at one of Loki’s simplest tricks. Peter would be absolutely mystified when he realised the full extent of his brother’s magic.

Then, with a flick of his hand, Loki shot the pebble; it hit Thor square in the forehead.

The thunder god gave an unexpectant yelp and nearly fell back.

When he regained his balance, both Peter and his brother were snickering at him.

“You two are both traitors,” he stated, striding past them with a false pretense of anger.

He wasn’t angry at all, though, he actually felt lighter than he had in years.

“Mr. Thor, I’m sorry,” Peter said through a giggle, not sounding sincere at all.

“I’m not,” Loki said, brutally honest.

“Mr. Loki no.”

“Do not ever get a brother, Peter. They are the worst.”

Thor almost missed Loki’s flinch, a tiny crack in his nearly impervious armour. A younger Thor would have brushed it off, quick to ignore all the small slights against his brother. But this time, he couldn’t disregard the way that Loki seemed to suddenly deflate. He tilted his head, trying to figure out why that joke would hit Loki so hard.

And then he remembered.

He remembered the crumbling of the Statesman, the stench of death, and his last words right before Loki’s life was choked out:

_You really are the worst brother._

Guilt sunk immediately and heavily into his stomach, coating his insides like an oil. His last, hateful words rang through his head. Oh Norns, that was the wrong thing to say, and he had deeply regretted saying them. In the worst of his grief, he had spent hours crying, thinking that Loki had died believing them.

Thor hated himself for inadvertently bringing it up again. He tried to catch his brother’s eyes, to silently tell him that he didn’t mean it like that, and of course, he didn’t hate being his brother.

But Loki’s eyes were glued to the ground, and he was facing away from Thor. He opened his mouth to say something, but his voice caught in his throat, and he feared making the situation worse.

“We need to pick up the pace,” Loki said. His tone lacked the lightness it had when talking to Peter. It sounded heavier now, chillier, and far more guarded.

The boy noticed the change and gave Thor a questioning look.

The god just shuffled past, too sheepish to admit his mistake. He was eager to catch up to his brother, to fix his fault instead of letting it fester.

Peter, Norns bless him, took the hint and hung back by a respectful distance. He was close enough that he’d probably catch snippets of their conversation, but it did give them a little bit of a sense of privacy. Besides, Thor felt more comfortable knowing the boy was close enough to be within earshot in case something were to happen to him.

“Loki.” His brother still didn’t meet his eyes and kept his head stubbornly forward. The muscles of his shoulders looked tense, though, and Thor knew he had to be fidgeting his fingers.

“Loki,” he tried again, and this time it was enough to make his brother flick his eyes to him before immediately skittering away.

“Yes?”

Thor knew he didn’t have a way with words, so he kept it simple. “I’m sorry.”

Loki gave him a long, side-eyed look before moving his gaze forward again. “There’s no need. It was true.”

The words repeated in his head:

_You really are the worst brother._

_Do not ever get a brother, Peter. They are the worst._

He shook his head furiously. “It was not true,” he insisted. “It is the furthest thing from the truth, and I regret it. It is one of the things I regret most in life.”

“Then why did you say it,” Loki snapped, whirling around on him like a snake about to strike. “If you didn’t believe it, why did you say it to begin with?”

There was hurt in his eyes, raw, like an exposed nerve. His face was contorted in anger, but his eyes shone with pain.

Thor hated himself for causing it.

Loki turned forward again with his jaw in a tight line. His brother obviously wanted this conversation over and was trying to shut Thor up.

But not this time. Thor had lost his brother once to their anger and their willingness to let hurt go unmentioned. He would not let Loki go again.

“I was scared,” he admitted. Despite the quietness of the words, they still startled Loki like he had yelled. His brother finally turned completely to him, looking at him fully.

“I was scared and shocked. I thought that you had betrayed us, and I didn’t realise what was happening until I saw the dagger form in your hand, which was quite the stupid play, brother.”

Loki shrugged. “I needed him to kill me, so that you would survive.”

Thor froze, his breath catching in his lungs. There wasn’t enough air in the cave, suddenly. He tried again for another breath, but his throat constricted, and all that came out was a choked sob. _“What?”_

Loki’s eyes briefly flicked over Thor, seemingly concerned over Thor’s visible distress. He swallowed and inhaled deeply before explaining, “Thanos only kills half. You and I were the last of the Royal family, so one of us was going to die. I could have escaped with the Tesseract or by another means of seidr, but I had to make sure that the half he took was me, not you.”

Tears pricked at his eyes, and Thor fought them back as he struggled for breath. It felt like the walls of the tunnel were closing in on him. Even in the cold, wet air of the cave, it was still too hot. And he still couldn’t _breathe._

He shoved down the tidal wave of grief for now; he needed to be strong for Peter. But alongside the barrage of grief came the guilt, heavy and biting. Loki had died for him, and how had he repaid that sacrifice? With false, cruel words that he’d spoken in a rush of anger and fear.

Loki met Thor’s wide eyes, and finally Thor inhaled, not a full breath but something that resembled one. Just seeing Loki, here, and okay (mostly), was enough to calm his flaring emotions that threatened to drown him in grief and regret.

His brother offered a slight, comforting smile, and reassured, “Do not look at me like that, brother. It worked, and I do not regret it.”

“But, but... even after I said those terrible things to you. You were still willing to lay your life down for mine?”

His brother’s face was unreadable, and his eyes narrowed on Thor, carefully scrutinising him. It always felt intimidating to be under the full brunt of Loki’s gaze. He was a master of intimidation and had brought lesser men to tears with a single, well-calculated look. Thor fought the urge to fidget away, even as he felt more claustrophobic the longer Loki stared at him.

After another moment of judgment, Loki finally relaxed, some of the tension bleeding out of his body.

“Yes, you idiot,” he murmured with an undercurrent of affection. The fact that Loki was showing the emotion after so many years shoving it down was a testament to how far he had come. “Of course, I would die for you, and I would die for you again if the Norns demanded it.”

Thor didn’t know what to say to that. What did anyone say to that? He had spent all this time thinking that Loki’s final act was just an impulsive strike in anger, only to find out now that it had actually been a calculated bid for Thor’s life.

His brother really never did cease to surprise him.

“I would like to hug you again,” Thor said. He was trying to keep back a smile but was failing miserably at it.

His little brother, always one for dramatics, immediately recoiled back.

“No.”

“Come on now, I wish to hug you for your heroics.” Thor was practically stalking Loki, even as he tried to wave Thor off and appear as intimidating as possible. Loki tried to back up, but was eventually met with the rock wall. He probably could have phased through it, but he didn’t, which told Thor that maybe he wasn’t as opposed to a hug as he was acting.

“No, Thor.”

Thor ignored him as he circled Loki in his arms again. He wondered for a second whether Loki really was as against this as he said he was, but that part of him relaxed when he realised that Loki wasn’t breaking out of Thor’s embrace.

Perhaps, his brother needed this as much as he did, even if his pride would never let him say so.

“Loki, I am going to say this again, and please let it get through your stubborn head. I am sorry. I am sorry for doubting you and for letting those be my last words. You are my brother, and nothing will change that no matter how many insults we fling at each other or the difference of the blood that runs in our veins. Being your older brother is one of the greatest honours of my life.”

At first Loki didn’t say anything, but then he shifted, moving like he was going to lean against Thor only to catch himself when he realised he couldn’t. He made a small sound of frustration before angling his head towards the crook of Thor’s neck.

“You really are the biggest, sweetest idiot in all the Nine Realms,” he whispered into Thor’s shoulder so quietly that he almost missed it.

Before Thor could respond, Loki stepped away from Thor, phasing right through his arms and instantly back to pretending that the hug had never happened.

“OMG, are you guys having another moment?” Peter said, with thinly veiled excitement. Neither Loki nor Thor had noticed him walk up.

“It was _not_ a moment,” Loki shot back a little too quickly, and Thor chuckled.

It wasn’t perfect, but then again, their relationship never was. But, maybe, in time they could come close to it.

“Young Peter, how much time does your eye-pod say that we have until we must turn around?”

Peter took the rectangle out of his pocket and made it glow. “It says there are seven minutes left on the timer.”

The boy did an excited little jog to get in front of the brothers. He was grinning with both hands on his backpack straps.

“We’ve almost made it. With no creepy stuff or horrible—” Peter looked to the side, his eyes widening, and his face instantly going white.

Both of the gods stiffened, instantly going to Peter’s side. The boy was staring at the wall, his face pale; he looked like he was trying to hold back a sound of horror.

When Thor came up behind him, he instantly pressed back against his chest, silently seeking his support.

Thor could not blame him for it because on the wall was a murderous swipe of dried blood. It trailed down the tunnel and into the darkness like a predator had dragged its prey down the rocks. Thor didn’t see how far it went because the darkness closed in before the lethal streak ended.

“Peter, it is okay. You are safe,” he assured Peter, draping an arm across his shoulders. “The blood is old, and we do not know whether it is human. It could have been from a wildcat kill.”

Thor didn’t mention that it was far too large to be a kill from any wildcat he knew. Loki met his eye, also recognising the omission.

It seemed to work though, calming Peter down a bit. He didn’t seem to be on the edge of panic anymore when he took a step out of Thor’s hold.

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” he said mostly to himself. He took a few moments to breathe and force his nerves down. When he met Thor’s eyes again, there was a steely determination in him.

“Would this count as evidence for the team?” he asked, sounding older than his years. It made something in Thor ache that this boy was already becoming well acquainted with battle and the horrors it brought.

“Yes.” Thor nodded as he spoke. “Perhaps it would be a good idea to take pictures with your eye-pod.”

Peter immediately pulled out the device. “Yeah, yeah, I can do that.” He began snapping some pictures of the wall and the blood.

Loki stalked up to Thor’s side, coming on his right. The positioning was well-trained into them, forged through the hundreds of battles in the exact same stance. It was natural now for them to fall into it as the presence of the enemy loomed ever closer.

“Is it human?” he whispered to Loki, careful to keep his voice quiet enough so that Peter wouldn’t be able to hear him.

His brother nodded grimly, watching the boy use the device. His face was hard and set in the firm lines that rose when Loki was faced with a battle. He knew his own face probably mirrored his brother’s; they had both been forged by Odin’s flame.

Loki met his eyes, though his gaze was distant. Strategies were flickering in his head, and, for a moment, he looked more like a ghost of their father than a ghost of himself. “It is also fresher than I’m sure you were hoping for.”

The muscles in Thor’s jaws tightened. “Damn,” he ground out, his hand twisting into a fist.

“Mr. Thor,” Peter said as he approached them again. He glanced down the hall before looking to the thunder god again. “Should we go down the tunnel? To see if there’s a body or something down there?”

Thor immediately shook his head. “I will do it. Show me how to take the picture, and I will go down the tunnel.”

“Thor.” Loki’s voice was sharp with an edge of nervousness. “I don’t believe this is a wise idea.”

He tried giving his brother a comforting smile, but it felt flimsy on his face. “We must know what’s down there, and I don’t want Peter to see it.”

Loki hesitated, and that was all the opening that he needed. “Please, Loki, stay back with the boy and keep him calm. I wouldn’t trust anyone else with the task.”

His brother snorted inelegantly. “As if you have much choice in babysitters.” Then, he added softly, “Just don’t do something stupid.” 

“I’ll try not to.” 

The answer didn’t satisfy Loki, but then again, nothing ever did.

Instead, he turned back to Peter, who was ready with his eye-pod.

The spider-child showed him how to work the device, and he cautiously made his way down the tunnel. The darkness practically engulfed him, and a shiver of fear travelled up his spine. Solitude immediately set in, making him desperately want to turn around and go back to his companions. The cave was forcing him to take turns, and soon, when he looked back, he only saw darkness.

He had the sudden urge to shout down the passage, just for the possibility of hearing a voice answer back.

“Focus Thor,” he muttered, reminding himself of why he came. He looked to his left at the bloody streak that he was following. It stained the rock a rusty red with a sanguinary glimmer. He gulped as he took a couple pictures of the wall, feeling his anxiety rise. 

The sense of _wrong_ was getting stronger. He couldn’t help but feel that it was encircling him, preying upon him like a ravenous wolf that hid just out of sight. The lethal mark continued down further until eventually ending underneath a huge rune marked upon the wall. It was bigger than any of the symbols that Thor had seen so far, and seemed to watch him as he approached it. He was a king, but he suddenly felt the urge to bow his head. Instead, he raised the eye-pod and took a picture like Peter had instructed him to. It somehow felt blasphemous, though he had no idea why. 

Thor looked down to the pod, feeling the glow of the device lighting up his face. The picture was clear, showing all the edges of the rocks and eerie swipes of the rune with the ending of a bloody streak below it. 

Briefly, he wondered what it meant. Was it a warning? Was it an omen of their doom? He guessed it would be foolish to hope that it was a welcome sign. 

He sighed, feeling the weight of the darkness and the _wrong_ setting on his shoulders. Hesnapped one last picture and turned around to return to his companions. 

He couldn’t help but feel its gaze, watching him as he turned his back to it. The feeling didn’t leave, even as he walked away.

Eventually, he emerged from the darkness, stepping into the welcome light and the warmth of his companion’s voices. The sense of _wrong_ was still there, but it shrunk in the presence of others.

He found Peter sitting against the far wall from the blood, and Loki crouched in front of him telling some story from Asgard. His hands were waving, and Peter was chuckling at whatever Loki was saying.

Something about a wedding. Oh Norns, not _that_ story. Thor sighed in exasperation. Loki had embarrassed him with that story more times than he could count aboard the _Statesman_ as he told it to the children on board. He’d said it was part of his plan to “boost morale”, but Thor knew his brother gladly took any chance he was offered to poke fun at the older for his “wedding”. It was even worse when the sorcerer decided to use illusions to add some realism to the tale.

At this moment, though, he couldn’t find it in himself to be annoyed by the retelling. Loki was well-known to be among the best storytellers in the Nine Realms (if pressed most people would begrudgingly admit that Loki _was_ the best). His talents were a good way to keep Peter’s mind from wandering too much on what the blood could mean, and Thor believed it to be working, judging by the boy’s small smile.

“I assume, you can see him now,” Thor said, giving the eye-pod back to Peter.

Peter stood and put the pod in his pocket. “Yeah, we practiced some focussing, and then all of the sudden I could see all of him.”

“That’s good. I’m glad that you can fully make his acquaintance now.”

“I like him. He’s nice, even though he’s trying to keep it a secret.”

Loki huffed, as he gracefully stood. “ _He’s_ right here,” he said with exasperation. He was trying to look put out, but Thor could the way Loki gave him a full-bodied scan to make sure all his limbs had remained.

He subtly tilted his head in the direction Thor cave from in a silent question. The only way that Thor could read it was because he knew Loki so well. _Did you find anything?_

 _I will show you later._ He signalled back, which Loki accepted with a slight nod. 

Peter was right. Loki was nice in his own covert manner. He cloaked it well with barbed remarks and backhanded compliments, but it was evident in his actions more than his words.

“Thor, didn’t we need to be getting back to your other Midgardians?” Loki had already begun walking in the opposite direction without waiting for Thor’s answer. Peter padded up to his side and began peppering him with questions about the story he was telling earlier.

Thor could have picked up his pace to catch up with them, but he found himself content just watching their backs, happy to simply observe the growing bond between Loki and Peter.

Still. The feeling of _wrong_ that was seeped into the very walls of the cave persisted. The runes on the wall were menacing. The blood spattered on the rocks told him that something evil had once lurked here. Or, perhaps, was still lurking here.

But, in that moment, a small peace settled inside him as he watched his brother fall under the spider-child’s charm.

They continued like that until Peter’s eye-pod began beeping, telling them that an hour had passed.

Which wasn’t right because they were still in the tunnel. They should be at the cavern with the cave painting, but they could only see more endless tunnel.

Peter looked around at the rocks, then back down to the device in his hands, pressing a couple of buttons.

“I don’t know what’s happening,” he muttered, fiddling with the device in increasingly frantic movements. “It should be right here.”

Peter was looking increasingly twitchy, and Thor knew that he had to keep the situation under control. He straightened his spine, ready to take the leadership position.

“Alright we cannot panic,” he said clearly, hoping to calm Peter down.

It didn’t help. The boy only seemed to twitch more and looked close to bursting.

He glanced at his brother for help, only to find him smirking a bit too smugly at Thor’s attempted soothing. Thor glared at him, trying to signal with his eyes that he would really like his help right now.

The other man only smiled lazily, even though his fingers were jerking against his palm. “What? I am not panicking. I’m already dead.”

The words made Peter’s eyes go impossibly wider. “Well, I’m not dead _and_ I’m panicking!” He was practically yelling now, and it seemed enough to break Loki out of his cool act. His posture softened, and a flicker of concern travelled on his face. He started to outstretch a hand to the boy like he was going to touch him, before pulling it back.

The gods met eyes quickly before Loki cleared his throat to catch the boy’s attention. Peter looked to him immediately like he was praying to the trickster for guidance. When Loki spoke, it was calm, collected, and exactly what Peter needed to settle some of his nerves. “Perhaps, we just have not walked far enough? We did waste a couple minutes standing and talking at the beginning of our trek. We will be fine. All we need to do is walk some more.”

“My brother is right,” Thor said, and he put a hand on the spider-child’s shoulder. Peter quaked under his touch. “I am sure that the cavern is just straight up ahead. We should continue walking for a few more minutes.”

There were a couple moments where Peter just glanced between the two gods before finally the tension in his muscles began to bleed out.

He nodded, and they silently began to walk again.

The walk now had lost all the peacefulness it held earlier. The sense of _wrong_ was staking forward in Thor’s head and beginning to coat his emotions. A ball of anxiety was steadily growing in his stomach, and he fought to remain stoic for Peter’s benefit.

Ten minutes of walking became fifteen, which became twenty with still no cavern in sight.

Thor was just about to open his mouth to say something when his brother stopped suddenly, whipping around to face the tunnel wall.

Peter yelped, nearly tripping himself through Loki, before just managing to catch his balance.

“Loki, what—” he cut himself off when he realised what his brother was staring at.

There were more runes (because of course there were more runes in this Norns-damned place), and in the middle of all those frantic marks were two bloody handprints.

The blood was fresh enough that it glimmered red in the artificial light.

Behind them, Peter’s breath caught in his throat, and he made a strangled sound.

“I don’t think that it’s a wildcat, Mr. Loki.”

Loki shook his head and approached the wall. He ignored the handprints and went to one of the largest runes, tracing it with a delicate finger. His eyes were narrowed and flickering between the various symbols.

He murmured something in a language that Thor didn’t know.

“Peter,” Loki said, startling the child from where he was staring at the bloody handprint. The boy’s eyes were wide and frightened, and he kept close to the two gods. He turned to Loki, grateful for the distraction from the handprints.

“Could you please take a picture of these with your pod? I believe that I will need to reference them later.”

Peter nodded eagerly, putting as much distance between himself and the handprints as he could without looking too obvious about it. With a serious look on his face, he began his job and took pictures of the runes silently. His jaw muscles were tight against his cheek, and he looked constantly on the edge of flight.

Loki moved to Thor’s side, eyes still fixed on the walls and trying to take all the symbols in.

For a moment, the cave was as silent as a graveyard. The silence was crawling under Thor’s skin and making the anxiety in his intestines turn.

Just as he was about to open his mouth to say something ( _anything_ to break the silence), the ghost spoke.

“Thor, I do not like this place. There is something here. Something stalks us at the edges of the darkness. I fear that the further we go, the further we become bound in its trap.”

He grit his teeth against the blister of fear that was forming in him. He knew Loki was right. He had been feeling similarly anxious from the moment he had walked into this cave.

Every step they took towards the apparent exit only seemed to let the cave swallow them further. Every rune on the wall felt like the eye of a predator. Every shadow, an enemy in hiding.

Getting Loki back (even if a little translucent) was the only bright spot in this place, and the darkness was slowly creeping in to claim him too.

And as much as Thor was overjoyed at having his brother with him again, he was not too keen on joining him in his ghostly state.

“You are right, but how Loki? How do we leave?”

His brother was discomforted by the question. He obviously didn’t have the answer either.

Thor turned back to the wall, scanning over the indecipherable runes again. “Do they hold any clues on how to escape?”

“Maybe? I am not sure. The language is ancient, I can only make loose connections between the archaic form and our modern words. For example, this one—” he motioned to one of the largest runes. It was a bit more faded and slightly different colour, but obviously a focal point on the wall “—seems to be the ancestor of our symbol for economy and trade. My greatest fear, though, isn’t what the runes say, but why they are here.”

He met Thor’s eyes again, and this time the glint of fear was obvious in them.

“Do you remember our most basic seidr lessons, Thor? When I made up that rhyme to help you remember the pillars of sorcery?”

The memory was instant and vivid.

_Both of them sitting in the golden afternoon sun with a book between them. Thor was desperately trying to make sense of everything while Loki was leaning over the pages, eagerly taking in the knowledge like there was nothing more fascinating in the Nine Realms_

_“I do not understand,” Thor whined, putting his all weight dramatically onto Loki. His brother was a head shorter than him and was nearly engulfed by Thor’s theatrics. Beneath him, Loki giggled, and his own body shook with it. “How in the Hel am I supposed to remember all of this?”_

_“It is really not that hard, brother,” Loki said, his shoulders bouncing with childish, innocent laughter. “Here, let me show you how I remember. I made a little rhyme of it.”_

When Thor spoke, he was back in the caves again, darkness close at his side.

“Runes are for rituals because they bind seidr to location.

Spells and hand motions make a glamour to shift your situation.

Potions are particularly good to mend a broken bone.

Rites call something up to make sure you’re not alone.”

Loki nodded with the rhyme. “It’s only a basic understanding, of course, but the point stands. The runes are here to bind seidr to a location.”

“Is that what troubles you?”

His brother’s face darkened, his jaw in a hard line. He drew his arm back from the wall and curled it close to his chest, right over where his scar would be. He rubbed it subconsciously. “Yes, because the main reason that you would bind seidr to a location is either to keep something out or—”

And suddenly, there was a sound. A subtle hissing and cracking that came from the tunnel that they had been walking down. It was furious and unnatural, sending a new wave of panic into his heart.

All three of them turned as the sound began again in a new rhythm.

“—or to keep something in,” Loki finished breathlessly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well here's a 9k chapter to my fic that was supposed to be 10k words long! Obviously, this story is getting a bit away from me, but I am loving writing these characters in the creepy cave. 
> 
> These chapters are slowly growing... I almost broke this one into two, but I figured that Halloween deserved a longer chapter. I have a feeling though, that these chapters might not be getting much shorter...
> 
> Next chapter is probably coming next weekend! You can visit my tumblr at [ SalParadiseLost ](https://salparadiselost.tumblr.com).
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Please leave a kudos and comment! Flattery gets you everywhere.


	5. The Figures in the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are revealed in the dark. Both good things and bad things.

Chapter 5: The Figures in the Dark

They were all frozen as the hideous hissing and Loki’s realisation set in.

There was an unnatural clicking noise and the sound of a scrape of claws against rocks.

It was getting louder.

It was getting closer.

“We need to move,” Thor declared, snapping both Peter and Loki to attention. Loki’s training triggered, and his brother instantly came to his right, positioning himself to guard Thor.

 _He’s protecting my blind side,_ Thor realised with a swell of affection. Losing his eye had been an adjustment, and there had been multiple instances on the _Statesmen_ when he had run into things or been uncharacteristically startled by someone approaching him.

Loki had teased him constantly about it (especially after a moment when he had run smack into a door frame and sported a large knot on his head for days). Eventually, he adjusted and began to forget about the fact that he had lost half his vision. He hadn’t thought that the trickster would remember, let alone take it into account during a battle.

Peter shuffled closer to the gods, unsure of what to do and where to go. He was obviously trying to swallow down his fear and was doing an admirable job of it too. But Thor could still see it in the tightness of his shoulders, the hard set of his teeth, and his frantic glances at the cave’s shadows.

Mentally, he assessed their group.

He had his lightning and Verity at his hip. His brother had his seidr, though he didn’t know whether it could pass through the veil. He wasn’t sure about Peter, though he doubted Stark would let him go into a mission without a means of protection.

Loki words from earlier that day, echoed in his head:

_“So, your royal guard for this expedition is composed of a ghost who can’t touch things and a boy who isn’t even fully out of adolescence.”_

He smiled at the irony of it. Loki always did have a habit of uncannily predicting the worst situation possible.

Thor looked between them—a grief-stricken god of thunder, a ghost of a trickster, and a spider-child protege of Tony Stark, 

They weren’t a perfect team, but they could get through this.

He knew they could.

They had to.

They didn’t sprint down the tunnel, even though a deep primal part of Thor desired nothing more. He set a moderate pace, unsure of how long they would need to keep running. They needed to keep their steps quiet too, because if they could hear the creature, the creature could likely hear them too.

They twisted through the tunnel system, taking random turns and trying to throw the creature off their scent. The sounds of the creature hunting them down rang through the air, and Thor could imagine its fangs bared and its nostrils flaring as it searched fervently for them. Thor had been attacked by wild animals before, but had never been so blatantly hunted down.

He had never felt so helplessly preyed upon.

An ear-splitting sound came, too close for Thor’s comfort, and he knew the beast was closing in. His heart was stuttering in his chest, beating against his ribcage. A new panic set in as he heard the feral calls of his hunter as death closed in around him.

“Thor,” Loki barked, jerking him back into their reality. He stopped suddenly, panting and ushering them towards an outshoot tunnel. His eyes flickered apprehensively between the darkness and the group. “Hide in here. I can lead it away.”

 _Thank the Norns,_ Thor thought, relieved and not even questioning whatever Loki had planned. With a grunt, he pulled Peter into the adjacent tunnel. The air tasted sour with their fear, and cloyed in his lungs.

Loki crouched, Thor and Peter following suit. The cold rock of the cave was wet against his skin and dug uncomfortably into his side. The cave seemed to press against him, making him feel uncharacteristically small.

He watched the darkened outline of his brother’s figure as he made a quick hand motion and whispered a magic word. Suddenly, a ball of yellow light formed in his palm, sparkling in the murk and casting shadows on his brother’s sharp features. Half of Loki’s face was turned to the light, while the other half dipped into the black.

There was a metaphor hidden in the image, but Thor was neither smart nor brave enough to figure it out.

The moment broke when the ball started to talk in the god’s own voice: “Quick, follow the Mighty Thor!”

His mouth dropped open in shock when he realised what Loki had created. “A Will O’ Wisp,” he whispered. He never thought he’d see one again.

Most Asgardians would consider them pests; they were mischievous in nature, known for leading travellers off the beaten path. But they were also Frigga’s favourite creatures, and she kept a small colony of them in her gardens. She fed them, raised them, and saw them through all the moments in their short lives. They loved her too, in their own way, as much as the delicate creatures could.

They still tricked her and led her falsely through the winding gardens, but she willingly followed, knowing it was just their instinct. They couldn’t change who they were; Frigga wouldn’t have wanted them to even if they could.

 _Anyways,_ her voice chimed in Thor’s head, _I enjoy the walks and they always manage to show me something new._

Loki gave the ball of light a ghost of a smile, and Thor saw traces of their mother in it.

“A manufactured wisp, but it should still serve its purpose,” Loki said, gently raising it to his eye-level before it calmly floated up and away from his open palms. It swam languidly in the air, like a fish in a pond, before it began to travel the tunnel they had just been running down. As it floated, it cast their voices down the cave, and hopefully, it would be enough to serve as a distraction.

His brother said another quick word, and Thor felt the familiar shimmer of his brother’s seidr wash over him. An obscuring spell, he recognised, used to mask their scent and muffle their sounds. Loki had used it often in the long quests and hunts they had embarked on with the Warriors Four.

Suddenly, there was a shift in the air, and the sense of wrong grew tenfold. Thor felt hollow, as if every good thing in the world had been stolen all at once. And in its place was the now familiar horror of his brother dying, his mother dying, hisfatherdying Asgardburningaroundhimfiredeathchokingonthe… 

His chest was tight. It hurt to breathe. His muscles couldn’t move. Why couldn’t they move?

“Focus, Thor,” Loki growled, his voice tight and sharp, shaking him out of his own head. Now wasn’t the time for this, but he still couldn’t…

He just couldn’t. The trickster was watching him, his face twisted in confusion as to why Thor wasn’t moving. All he could do was search his brother’s eyes in a silent plea.

Wordlessly, Loki fell into the leading position, taking the reins when Thor couldn’t.

“Get down and turn your lights off,” Loki whispered, his voice an indecipherable swirl of emotions. Anxiety sizzled under the sound.

Peter and Thor fumbled with their flashlights, and hastily turned them off, dipping the cave into a permanent night.

Their frantic breaths permeated the air, and Thor’s seeing eye fought to find any source of light.

He felt raw and flayed, his nerves jumping around in his chest.

Where was the light? There had to be light.

But the world was engulfed in darkness. Filling him, filling his soul, rising up the back of his throat and dragging him down. It expanded in his lungs, taking the space where air should be…

There was a shift in the murk, and suddenly, Peter was pressing against his side. A delicate hand slid into his, and he grasped it tight. He felt Peter’s pulse and his bird-thin bones under his skin. His grip was clutching and desperate, if he had Asgardian strength, he might have broken Thor’s hand.

The god understood the sentiment. Peter’s hand, though it was Midgardian frail, was the only thing keeping him grounded in the darkness.

Otherwise, he would have felt like he was falling, with a risk of being lost forever and never…

_Loki._

His brother’s name hit him like a hammer to the head. Where was he?

Thor grasped at the darkness, trying to find his brother’s warmth, to feel him at his side, to know that he was really and truly here.

But all he felt was air.

Air and the Norns-damned darkness.

Panic had been bubbling steadily in his chest, and it threatened to boil over now. He felt its fangs bearing down on his heart, ready to snap the organ into pieces.

Where was his brother? He needed his brother. Didn’t Loki know that he needed him?

Visions of Loki falling from the Bifrost and being eaten by the Void filled his head.

His little brother had been stolen by the darkness once; Thor would be damned if he let the Nothingness take him again.

“Loki,” he whispered urgently. He heard the tremble in his own voice, and it almost made him break out in a harsh laugh. Pitiful. A few moments in the darkness was enough to crack his fragile mind.

His brother’s response didn’t come, and the panic’s fangs tightened their grip on his heart.

“Loki,” he tried again, louder and more desperately.

Where was Loki? Why didn’t Loki come back? Didn’t he know that Thor was breaking apart without him?

There must have been something in Thor’s voice that time, because he heard Loki’s voice close to his ear.

“Yes, Thor, I’m here, but we must be quiet.” Just the sound, his brother’s familiar tone, almost made him break.

“But, but.” His words caught in the back of his throat like fabric on thorns. He had so much to tell Loki. He had so much he needed Loki to know, just in case his brother slipped through his fingers again.

He reached out, needing confirmation that Loki was really there.

“Shh,” Loki hushed, his voice carrying a tinge of sadness. “I’m here. You can’t touch me, remember? But I’m still here.”

Thor simply nodded because he didn’t think his muscles would allow anything else.

He opened his mouth to say something, but before he could do so, the feeling of _wrong_ took over again, flooding his senses with unsourced anxiety.

Fear shot through him; it felt like ice trickling down the column bones of his spine, freezing him in place. He didn’t know how, and he didn’t know why, but he knew the monster was there. Right outside of the opening of the tunnel they were in.

His eyes searched the darkness, even though there was no light for him to see by. But still, the desperate animal part of him screamed at him to keep looking, terrified at its loss of sight.

It moved in the murk, clicking and dragging its heavy body across the rocks in the cave. He tried to conjure up images of what the creature could look like, and, traitorously, his mind only supplied him with the falsely grotesque illustrations of Jotunns that he grew up with.

Snarling. Ravenous. Vicious. Worthy of nothing but death.

No, no, no. He knew that was wrong. Loki was proof that everything they had known about Jotunns was wrong.

But still, if this creature was a Jotunn like the village’s legend had said it would be, did that not prove his childhood assumptions correct?

Sickness rose up in him, and it stung with betrayal towards his brother. It had been years since he had learned the truth about Jotunns, so why would he ever think that. He hated that the thoughts could still spring into his head.

There was a long, low hiss that echoed through the cave, and the sound became his entire world, reverberating through his mind like a phantom echo.

At his side, he felt Peter bite down whatever scared noise he had almost made and press against Thor like he was trying to bury himself in him. The boy was shaking in terror, and Thor held him close, even though he felt equally petrified.

The creature was dragging itself through the cavern. It must have been large given how heavy the sounds were and was clearly trying to hunt them down. There was a pause in the beast’s path, and it seemed to have halted in front of their cave opening.

Beyond them, the manufactured voice of the will o’ wisp called. His voice, Loki’s voice, and Peter’s voice all played in a loop.

Would it be enough? Loki had taken a guess that the creature hunted primarily by sound when he made the wisp. Had his assumption been wrong? Would the monster still be able to trap them here and tear them apart?

Were they going to die here?

Peter’s quick breath was hot on his neck, and he could feel his small heart beating frantically against Thor’s own chest. He was so young. He hadn’t gone through two decades. He didn’t deserve to have his life cut short, when mortals already had such small spans.

Anxiety hung in the air, thick as oil, and coating the inside of his lungs.

 _Please keep moving,_ he prayed. _Please be fooled and let us live._

The creature gave another screech that seemed to rattle Thor’s bones, and then, it lumbered forward, past their hiding spot.

Elation ran through Thor as the monster kept stalking forward, following Loki’s lure. He listened to its weighty steps and the dragging of its body as it moved away from them.

Thor released a breath he hadn’t realised he had been holding, and the tight panic in his chest loosened somewhat.

They stayed crouched by the wall for what must have been at least an hour. None of them had the courage to move, like the small sense of security they managed to establish could easily be shattered by the slightest fidget.

Peter, who had previously been a tight ball of nerves against Thor’s chest, was now slumped into him. His breaths finally slowing down, heartbeat going back to normal, and adrenaline draining out of him.

Thor rubbed hand up and down Peter’s back, hoping to ease some of the lingering tension from the boy’s muscles. It reminded Thor of the nights centuries ago when Loki would crawl into his bed after a nightmare, whispering to Thor to wake up and chase the monsters away.

It was ironic, given how terribly Thor had been at protecting Loki from the real monsters of life.

“Thor.” Loki’s voice was tight and had the slightest tremble. It was off putting to hear it as anything but firm and confident, and it made the big brother part of him flare up again. “I think it is safe for us to turn on the lights again.”

Thor nodded, even though he knew his brother couldn’t see it. With a snap, he flicked the flashlight on, and light spilled into the cave. He blinked a couple of times, waiting for his eyes to adjust, before turning to look at his brother.

He thought that Loki had been vaguely to his right (it was much harder to keep track of a ghost in pitch-back darkness), probably crouched a small distance away. Instead he found Loki pressed up against his side, half of his shoulder disappearing into Thor’s. When he looked down, he realised that Loki’s arms phased through his, his brother’s hands desperately trying to clutch Thor’s. Delicate fingers were curled, and knuckles were bone white. It was like Loki was trying to hold on to Thor for dear life. 

Loki’s body was taut as if every one of his muscles were rigid with nerves. His pale face had somehow become even paler, as if he had seen true spectre in all the darkness. He gulped, and his Adam’s apple bobbed on his throat.

It was clear that Loki was petrified, but the monster had moved past them over an hour ago. Thor’s own terror had faded back into the unsettled anxiety that was consistent with his time in the cave, but Loki looked like he was just now getting relief from the panic.

Which begged the question, what was Loki so afraid of when he stared out into the dark?

“Loki,” His name was heavy on Thor’s tongue, and he startled at the sound. He met Thor’s gaze, but his eyes didn’t see him; caught in the dark memories undoubtedly replaying in his head. Thor could see ghosts of horrors flickering behind his eyes, and he wished he could wipe them away. They spent a few moments completely frozen, until Loki blinked, eyes snapping into focus. The spell was broken, and his face finally settled into something more familiar.

Thor couldn’t help a small, relieved smile. “The monster is gone. Your clever thinking saved our lives.”

Loki didn’t say anything. He seemed to be at war with himself, his face shifting between a thousand emotions, before he turned away. He stared back out at the void, and Thor wondered what Loki imagined could be staring back. 

He didn’t know why but a sudden, irrational panic washed over him, and he had the desperate urge to pull Loki to his body. Almost as if Loki was on the edge of a cliff, and Thor was a few feet away, reaching out to yank him to safety. Almost as if Loki’s life was balanced on a knife edge, and if Thor didn’t intervene, he would be lost again. 

But he couldn’t touch Loki. He couldn’t pull Loki from the edge and tuck him under his chin and feel his little brother’s life pulsing against his. Loki would have to come back from the edge himself. 

Eventually, he did turn back to Thor and away from the darkness surrounding them. Something intangible shifted between them, and Loki gave Thor a rare, delicate smile.

“I guess it did.”

Thor chuckled, the sound thick with relief, and felt something in his chest untangle. Things might just be okay, at least for now.

Thor stood, instinctively reaching down to give Loki a hand up. His brother only rolled his eyes, waving Thor’s hand away, before rising in single, graceful movement.

Peter took his hand instead, stumbling to his feet. He took a few breaths before adjusting his backpack on his shoulders.

“What do we do now?” he asked, his voice small. The monster was surely long-gone, but none of them were eager to raise their voices.

The gods met eyes before Thor looked back down the tunnel that the monster travelled.

“Well, we certainly aren’t going that way.”

All three of them turned to look down the tunnel they were standing in. The cavern seemed to yawn wider, and the darkness licked at their boots. That sense of _wrong_ had nested itself in Thor’s mind again.

But it was better than going in the direction the monster surely went.

“We need to find Tony and Natasha,” Thor said, a loose plan forming in his head. “Once we are together, we will be better able to defend against the creature and figure out how to leave the cave. Keeping us apart only makes us weaker.”

Peter nodded, but Loki looked more hesitant. He knew his brother hadn’t missed the obvious _how_ that was missing in Thor’s thought process.

Or the even worse question, what if the monster had already gotten to the other Midgardians?

Thor shook his head, as if the motion would help dislodge the possibility from his head. Tony and Natasha were fine, and they needed to warn them. That was what it came down to. Everything else was secondary. The anxieties persisting at the back of his mind, the sense of _wrong_ that had been prodding at him since the moment he’d entered the cave—all that could be pushed to the side. Finding and warning the others was more important.

Without another word, Thor walked forward, passing the boy and his brother. Loki’s gaze felt heavy on the back of his neck, but he didn’t turn to meet it. Instead, he kept leading them further into the widening darkness.

This time, when they walked down the tunnel, it was remarkably quieter. Peter occasionally commented, but didn’t pepper the Asgardians with questions like he had earlier. The silence only made the cavern feel more like a tomb.

Their search for Tony and Natasha bore no results. They hadn’t seen even a hint of them, or a single sign that they had walked down any of these winding paths. Perhaps it was a blessing, though, because they hadn’t found any more blood or frantic runes either.

Sometimes, no news was good news, but Thor couldn’t help but feel that this victory was hollow.

Thor was beginning to feel an ache in his chest and looked to Peter next to him. The boy was keeping his head high valiantly, but the god could see dark circles beginning to form under his eyes.

It was hard to tell the passage of time in this place (just another way that it twisted with his head), but Thor felt that all of them would benefit from stopping for the night (if it was, in fact, night). Tensions were high, and they all needed a bit of rest.

Just as Thor was about to call off their search party for the night, a voice finally broke through the silence.

“Here Natasha! I’m over here.” Tony’s shout shattered the uneasy peace.

Peter straightened like he had been shocked. “Mr. Stark?” His voice was thick with disbelief. Tears threatened to fall at the corner of his eyes. “Mr. Stark?”

The boy tensed and looked a mere second away from bolting in the direction of the voice.

Loki stepped ahead, putting a translucent hand, blocking Peter’s path. His eyes were narrowed, and his mouth was in an unhappy tilt.

“Wait, Peter, we don’t know what’s down there,” he said, and it was enough to make Thor tense, too. Loki had always been the one to hold Thor back, to keep him from running head first into any danger he found.

Peter, though, didn’t know that side of Loki. He bit his lip in apprehension, and still looked like he wanted to rush towards the voice.

“Natasha!” The voice yelped in pain, and there was a low, bone-chilling hiss. One that Thor had hoped that he would never hear again.

“Tony!” Peter surged forward, unable to hold himself back any longer.

Loki tried to catch his shoulder, but his hand went through the boy. Within a couple moments, the boy was swallowed by the darkness.

Thor and Loki glanced to each other once before both of them took off in the direction of the voice, calling after Peter.

As they got closer, the hissing and screeching noises increased, but so did the frantic yells of his companions.

The familiar rush of battle flooded into him, and adrenaline raced into his veins. Exhaustion was heavy on his bones, but he pushed it back.

Now, wasn’t the time for that.

Now, was the time to fight.

There was a yell that Thor recognised as Natasha’s voice, and then the tell-tale crack of a gunshot.

The creature shrieked, and the sound shook through Thor. The sense of _wrong_ escalated until it was pounding in the back of the god’s head.

They were close now, and the familiar sounds of fighting were echoing all around the cave, surrounding them on all sides. The tunnel widened, seeming to turn into another large cavern, which must be where their battle was raging.

Thor paused right before entering, risking a glance towards his brother. He took Verity from his hip, shifting it out of its fanny-pack form, and relished in the feeling of the weapon’s weight in his hand.

“Ready, brother?” Thor said with an ambitious smile. His lips pulled back, and he swiped his tongue across his teeth.

Loki met him with a dangerous smirk, dagger glinting in his hand. “Always.”

And together, they turned towards the battle.

The first thing that struck Thor was the creature itself. He had never seen it, only heard it from the black, and seeing it now only made their situation impossibly more real. A foreign panic set deep in his heart, the sense of _wrong_ was leaking into his blood.

It was large, easily three times Thor’s size, even when it was hunched over in the cavern.

It was clearly the thing depicted on the cave painting, with its long, misshapen limbs that ended in gnarled, clawed fingers. It was vaguely humanoid, if a human was starved and had their limbs stretched and broken in painful places. Much of its body was obscured by an unruly, mane of black hair that followed its spine and trailed along the ground behind it. Behind a curtain of hair on its face were two pupil-less red eyes.

Thor hated the way he searched for a blue tint in its impossibly pale skin.

He looked to Loki and found him already observing him. His brother cocked his head in a regal tilt, chin held high in a royal confidence that had been bred into them.

Loki smirked slyly, a familiar expression that Thor knew as well as his own face. “Having doubts, brother?”

The confidence was rubbing off on Thor, making him feel suddenly more grounded than he had felt in years. “We’ve fought bigger.”

Another snap of a bullet, the sound bouncing off the hard stone walls of the cave, and Natasha growled angrily. The whine of Tony’s Iron suit filled the cave as it powered up, and light washed over the cavern.

Illuminating the cavern made it easier to see the creature; somehow more horrifying in the light.

Thor hefted Verity and surveyed the creature’s jerky movements. His eyes caught on its swiping claws and gnashing teeth and the way it seemed to be trying to smash his companions into the rocks. They were avoiding it, so far, but he knew they couldn’t keep it up forever.

He paused for a moment and watched his brother slip into the shadows, circling the creature like a snake preparing to strike. He waited until the monster turned to attack Tony before jumping into the fray.

“Hey, hammer time, it’s nice for you to show up,” Tony snarked through gritted teeth. It wasn’t hard to see that he was struggling, though. His suit wasn’t built for tight spaces, and it was less than nimble in the cavern. The more agile Peter and Natasha seemed to be faring better.

Thor reached for his lightning, feeling it spark immediately in his hands and up his arms. The electricity danced across his skin, and the familiar surge of it brought a gleeful smile to his face. For the first time since entering the cave, he felt powerful instead of powerless. The hunter instead of the hunted.

But something became immediately clear as he charged his power for an attack: Lightning was not a weapon built for small spaces. 

The electricity crackled, bouncing off the rocks, and sparked dangerously close to his Midgardian friends. 

His fragile Midgardian friends. 

Reluctantly, he pulled up his lightning, sealing it away for a different time. It sizzled under his skin, desperate to be let out, but he stifled it down. A younger Thor wouldn’t have been able to hold back, but time had taught him how important control of his element was. 

So, he needed different methods. 

He looked down at the gleaming, razor sharp sword in his hand. Loki really had outdone himself making the weapon into something so beautiful and dangerous. It was time to see how successful he was at making something deadly.

He grinned, adrenaline running fast and hot in his veins. He knew how to fight, and he felt excited at the prospect of feeling powerful and capable again.

The monster roared and reared back. Its unearthly eyes found him in the darkness, locking onto its next target.

And let it come. Thor was more than prepared to protect his own and shred the creature to pieces.

“Careful, Thor, nothing’s hitting,” Natasha ground out, constantly moving to keep out of the creature’s grasp.

Thor didn’t know what she meant by that, and he probably should have thought about the warning more before trying to plunge his sword into the creature’s side.

Instead of feeling his weapon tear through meat and bone, it passed right through the creature, as if it wasn’t there at all.

Just like Loki.

Unlike Loki, though, the monster didn’t seem to have a problem flinging him into the cave wall.

He smashed against the rock, his side colliding with the dreadfully hard surface, and groaned at the immediate flare of pain along his ribcage. Blessedly, nothing felt broken, but he knew it would ache in the morning, and he would be sporting a rather large cluster of purple and yellow bruises. The way that the world seemed to swim around him worried him slightly, but that would not be enough to keep him from fighting.

His brother seemed to instantly manifest at his side. He instinctively tried to prod Thor for injuries, only to growl when he remembered he wasn’t corporeal.

Thor took a deep breath in, trying to will the pain away. “Isn’t it funny that you cannot touch, while the monster can?” He chuckled, and the sound was wetter than it should have been.

Loki gave him a flat look, though his eyes kept sweeping over Thor. “Hilarious.”

Thor’s eyes drifted to the battle looming over them. His companions were not doing any better and kept trying to distract the creature to keep it from landing any solid hits. It was hard to win against an enemy that you could not touch.

“Why is it able to avoid every attack?” Thor asked his brother.

Loki’s expression soured, and he gave him a familiarly incredulous look. “Why do you think I know what’s going on?”

Thor raised an eyebrow and shot Loki a sceptical expression.

His brother huffed, turning back to the battle with an appraising eye. It only took a few moments for him to have an answer for Thor. “The creature seems to be able to control its passage between the veils. It’s manipulating the space around it so that when you try to land a hit, it passes through it as if a ghost, but when it strikes, it hits as if living.”

Ah, that would be a problem.

“Can you pass between the veils too?” Thor asked, and Loki wrinkled his nose.

“Don’t you think if I could, I would have done so already? The monster is even able to dodge my seidr and any knives I conjure up.” He narrowed his eyes in obvious displeasure. “You and the boy both seem to think that being dead somehow anoints me with multiple new powers.”

He shrugged. Could his brother blame him? He had a habit of doing all manner of impossible things.

The monster growled low in its throat, whipping an arm out and managing to clip Peter’s side. The boy yelped, stumbling as he was thrown off his balance, and immediately clutching at his new wound.

“We need to do something.” Thor got up from the wall, Loki following the movement. Knowing he had never been particularly skilled at coming up with plans, he turned to Loki; judging by the look on his face, he was already scanning through different possibilities in his mind. “Loki, what do we do?”

His brother ran a frantic hand through his hair. “I’m thinking,” he snapped, then his eyes landed on the sword in Thor’s hand.

Thor’s eyes followed Loki’s before he shot his brother a questioning look. What did he have planned with the sword?

“That’s it,” Loki whispered, eyes lighting up as a plan finally came together in his head. “Put Verity on the ground.”

Thor did so without question and watched his brother crouch over the weapon, the green glow of seidr already coalescing in his hands.

“Come on, you hunk of metal, feel your master’s call,” he said through clenched teeth, and his seidr flared.

Then, suddenly, the sword flashed in Loki’s green-gold seidr, and his brother’s face lit up. He reached down and plucked Verity from the ground.

Thor’s eyes widened. “Brother, are you solid now?” He had to keep himself from trying to grab his wrist.

“No, you oaf, but Vanir steel is known for being particularly adaptive and prone to spellwork. The sword also knows me well because of how many workings of seidr I’ve placed upon it already. I’ve simply called it across the veils and, now that it knows both, it should be able to pierce any creature between the two sides.”

Loki gave a deadly smirk, fingering the sharp edge of the blade. Thor had seen that expression on Loki’s face many times, and it always drew blood. He looked moments away from trying to take the monster on by himself, but stopped when Thor put his hand on the hilt of the sword.

“Loki, I will not stop you in this fight, but please do not feel as if you have to take the monster on alone. Give us an opening, so we can make an escape, then we can plan for its death later,” e tried to reason, but Loki’s expression became closed off and frosty.

“Do you not believe I can do this, Thor, or do you trust me so little that you can’t bear to place a sword in my hand?” he hissed, anger flaring behind the sound.

Thor held his hands up and pleaded to his brother. “No, Loki, of course not. I trust you.” The words rushed out, and Thor desperately wished that he could grasp Loki’s shoulder. “You are a capable warrior, but it is dangerous, and you will be alone in the feat. I do not want you to put yourself into unnecessary risk when we can plan later to take on the beast together.”

There was a silence between them as Loki thought. The longer it lasted, the surer that Thor was that Loki would refuse.

But finally, some of the tension leaked out of Loki’s shoulders.

“Fine,” he conceded. “When I give the signal, we make our escape.”

“Thank you, brother,” Thor said with a nod, and he watched Loki run into the battle. His heart stuttered in his throat; though he knew Loki to be one of the best fighters he had ever witnessed, he couldn’t help but see how small Loki looked as the looming silhouette of the monster preyed upon him.

He worried. He wasn’t sure he would ever not worry when he saw his little brother risk his life.

Loki swung the sword expertly, casting an illusion to draw the beast’s attention. The creature hissed and fell for the ploy, exposing its belly to Loki’s attack. He struck, as quick as a viper, landing his first blow on the creature. It reared around, and he gracefully twirled out of the way before it could hone in on him.

He would have liked to watch. His brother was a fluid fighter that made a battle look like a captivating dance, and it gave him a sense of peace—that he could come to his brother’s aid if need be.

But Thor had a duty to attend to, and he knew better than anyone that Loki could hold his own.

He crept along the edge of the cave, giving the fight a wide berth, and remaining well out of his brother’s way.

He approached the Midgardians who had huddled at the edge of the cavern and away from the fight.

“Thor, what the hell is going on here?” Tony hissed, not taking his eyes off the fight that was whirling around them. His eyes were tracking Loki’s path, squinting to make him out.

“Do you see him?” Thor asked as he looked over them for injuries. The Midgardians were a bit battered and bruised, but there were no major injuries. They could emerge from this relatively unscathed.

“Him?” Natasha questioned, and Peter piped up.

“Yeah! Mr. Loki is totally fighting the monster all by himself right now.” His voice held more than a little bit of awe.

“Loki? As in _Loki_ Loki? Loki who’s been dead for nearly a year Loki?” Tony looked at them all like they were crazy.

Thor gave a proud smile. “Not quite dead.”

Suddenly, Loki yelped, and Thor looked over his shoulder to watch Loki fly through the air and crash to the ground a few feet for them. He skidded on his shoulder and let out a long string of Asgardian curses. Verity clattered against the rocks, landed close to Thor’s boot.

The monster roared, and his brother said a rushed magic word, creating a double to lure its attention away.

Thor chuckled, picking up the sword to hand back to Loki.

“Was that the signal, brother?” Thor asked, just a little bit smug. He didn’t enjoy seeing Loki get truly hurt, but as an older sibling, it was just a _bit_ satisfying to see him get knocked down a peg.

“No, it was not the damn signal, Thor,” Loki hissed, massaging his shoulder before rising. He cracked his neck, rolled his shoulders, and squared up for the fight again. He held a hand out, and Thor gave the sword over.

“Do not do anything stupid,” he warned, which his brother shook off with a scoff.

He flashed Thor a grin that was all dangerous teeth. “How could I when I you’re stupid enough for the both of us?” Then, in a green-gold flash, Loki was on the other side of the room, trying to hack into the creature.

“That’s really him,” Tony whispered. “Thor, you gotta tell me how your brother keeps managing to come back from the dead.”

“Ha, I would rather he stay alive, rather than be forced to perform the trick again.” Tony was still looking to him for an explanation but Thor waved him off. “I will explain more later, Man of Iron, but right now we should focus on preparing for our escape.”

“Thor!” His brother’s voice cut through the cavern. He was balancing on the creature’s head, as it frantically tried to dislodge him. “Here’s your signal!”

Loki plunged the sword into one of eerie red eyes.

The creature let out an unearthly screech that made the feeling of _wron_ g that seems to eat into Thor’s soul and infect him. Everything suddenly felt broken and irreparable and like nothing good could ever happen again. He tried to reason against it, he knew that it was just the creature’s influence, but he was frozen in horror and helpless against a crippling fear that he feared may never leave. 

He glanced to the side and saw his Midgardian companions were similarly petrified, unable to move as the _wrongness_ washing over them. 

The creature writhed, clawing at its own face as Loki jumped down from his impromptu perch. His brother landed heavily, without his usual grace. His chest was heaving and sweat slicked his skin. Verity weighed in his hand soaked with the creature’s blood, even though Loki himself was clean of any of the bloodshed. The blood must not have been able to touch him. 

Loki’s eyes levelled on Thor, wrath flickering behind them. He was silhouetted by the creature’s hulking body tossed in throes of pain.

He looked like wraith, a vengeful spirit, an ethereal harbinger of death.

“Move, Thor. We need to go now.” He barked and suddenly the image of a vindictive apparition cleared and he was Thor’s brother again.

His brain screamed at him to listen to Loki. To turn and sprint in the other direction.

But he still couldn’t move. It was almost like the sense of _wrong_ was holding him in place and keeping him from fleeing. 

“I can’t,” he whispered and Loki’s face darkened with confusion. 

“What do you mean you can’t?” he snapped, anger rising. “Now’s not the time for gaming, we need to get out of here.” 

“I can’t,” his voice was breathy and empty, even though his heart was frantically beating in his chest and anxiety ran through him like electricity. “It’s holding me here.”

Some of the annoyance leaked out of Loki and was replaced by realisation. His eyes scanned over Thor’s body, and he looked at each Midgardian with a similar analysis.

“Miasma,” Loki said, his voice full of horrified disbelief, “It’s using miasma.”

Thor didn’t know what miasma was, but given Loki’s expression it hardly looked like a good thing. The trickster growled a curse, looking between the creature and Thor. It wasn’t going to be distracted by its pain forever. 

“You must overcome it, brother,” Loki insisted, eyes frantic. “Break its hold.”

“I can’t.”

“You can.”

The monster roared, seeming to get to its feet again and starting to rise. Loki’s face paled as he realised they were quickly running out of time. 

“We don’t have time for this,” Loki’s voice was rising in anger, fear and frustration. He looked down to the sword in his hand, and an idea lit in his head. “Sorry, brother.”

He angled the sword in his hand, turning it so the flat side faced Thor, and he swung it like a club at Thor’s temple.

The metal crashed against him, and he instantly dropped to his knees. Pain bloomed at the side of his head, and it throbbed with pulsing blood. 

The hold that the terror had on him loosened though, and he felt it slip away. Relief washed through him as he realised that he could move his limbs again.

He groaned, rubbing his temple and felt his hand get sticky with old blood. He must have a huge smear of it from where the sword hit his face.

“Was that entirely necessary, brother?” he scoffed, even though he was relieved to be able to move again.

Loki shrugged, though there was a small, crooked grin on his face. “A blow to the head is one of the most efficient ways to break the hold of seidr. And it was a little bit satisfying.”

The creature began hissing, and Thor scrambled to his feet. Loki passed the sword off to Thor and instead used his hands to begin crafting a spell. 

“Tend to your Midgardians,” he demanded over his shoulder, “Roughly shaking them should break the spell.”

Thor moved to Tony who was the closest to him and shook him vigorously by the shoulders. He could see the creatures hold release and the fog clear from his eyes. 

“You couldn’t have shaken me?” Thor yelled backwards, as he moved to shake Natasha. 

“I can’t touch you,” Loki retorted, “If you so desire, I’ll make sure to poke you with my sword instead of just smacking you with it.”

Thor snorted as he placed his hands on Peter’s shoulders to break him from the spell. He tried to be a little gentler with the boy, but he still had to give him a hard shake. 

Light streamed in from behind Thor and he knew that Loki’s spell must be coming to completion. 

“When I release this, we need to leave.” He barked, and the light from his palms blazed, filling the cave. 

Loki yelled an ancient powerful word, and the cave awashed in green-gold light. The creature reared back and attempted to lunge at the light.

“Go now!” His brother whipped around, leading them down the tunnel and away from the infuriated monster. 

Thor and the Midgardians didn’t need to be told twice.

The group ran down a tunnel, and the calls of the creature rang through the entire cave. 

Loki’s magic was at their back, pouring light in from behind them. Earlier that day, Thor had wished so dearly for the light and the comfort it brought. By now, it only seemed to reveal exactly how much danger they were in. 

So instead they took refuge in the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading everyone! I'm sorry for the wait! But the good news is that the next chapter is also finished and currently being beta'd! So there should be a shorter wait on that one. 
> 
> Also as you might notice the chapter count has gone up too! Yes, this 10k, 7 chapter story is slowly growing and still taking over my life. 
> 
> You can visit my tumblr at [ SalParadiseLost ](https://salparadiselost.tumblr.com) for general writing things and fandom content!
> 
> Please leave me a kudos and review! Flattery gets you everywhere.


	6. The Realisations Great and Small

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Several things come to light and some of these things are dark. Some of these, surprisingly aren't. Thor would even dare to call them 'happy'.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome, welcome to the next chapter.
> 
> Special thank you as always to the illustrious Sundial_at_Night who so graciously corrected all my dumb errors and provided me with various Norse bro headcanons in my time of need. She brings the level of this fic up by like 100. 
> 
> This chapter is one of the fluffier ones and has two of my favourite scenes in it. 
> 
> But you don't want to hear that, go on and read!

Chapter 6: The Realisations 

The group twisted through the cave system with Thor leading in the front, and Loki trailing behind, occasionally throwing manufactured wisps down alternating tunnels to confuse the monster if it did come this way.

The group began to slow down into a walk after the roars had long faded into silence

They stood to catch their breaths (except for the Asgardians who were only slight winded) and finally recollect.

“Someone,” Tony panted, “needs to tell me what’s going on.”

Natasha straightened, eyes sharp on Loki. “I would also like to know. Everything that I’ve seen in the last hour should be impossible. You were dead last time I checked.”

The trickster eyed her warily. “Sorry to disappoint, but I’m only _half_ -dead.”

Tony didn’t look like he believed him at all. “And how does that work?”

The shadows flickered across Loki’s face, dipping part of it into darkness. He gave Tony a dramatic half-bow that somehow still looked sarcastic. “I believe your people also have the concept of a ghost.” He looked up to Tony, and his smile was all flashing teeth.

“Ghosts aren’t real,” Tony insisted, but there was clear hesitation in the statement.

“I seem to remember a time quite recently when you didn’t believe Norse gods were real either. Midgardians have such a short memory when it comes to recalling what is fact and what is fiction.”

Natasha stepped between the two men, breaking up the fight before it could really escalate. “That still doesn’t explain how you’re here.”

The god relented with a shrug. “Truthfully, I do not know. The cave is strange, and the barrier between life and death is thin here. When I came back into awareness, your merry band was investigating the cave entrance, but seemed incapable of hearing or seeing me. Eventually, though, I seemed to come more into focus.”

“Yeah,” Peter cut in, “I began hearing him and seeing him when me and Mr. Thor went on our own. Mr. Thor has been able to see him since yesterday.”

Tony’s eyes widened. “The voice,” he realised. “The voice was real all along.”

Thor nodded, and he couldn’t help a smile. “Aye, I was not going crazy, only being haunted.”

“So wait, wait, wait, you’re saying your murderous little brother who’s died two times already—

“Three,” Thor corrected, and Tony barrelled on.

“Three times already, came back as the living dead, and we’re just going to sit here and accept it?”

“Yep,” Peter chirped, and Thor nodded heartily. Loki crossed his arms over his chest and shot Tony the smuggest, most self-satisfied look he could muster.

Thor couldn’t help rolling his eyes. Sometimes his little brother just asked to be punched in the jaw.

Tony looked like he wanted to do just that, but Natasha stepped forward, all business. “Boys, you’re both pretty, but we have bigger problems. We’ve been walking in here for over twenty-four hours and our food and water stores can’t last forever. Worse than that, we have some kind of monster trying to hunt us down with no exit in sight. We need to be a team to get out of here alive.”

She fixed all of them with a hard look before turning fully to Loki. “Thor said you might be able to read the runes. Was he right about that?”

The god shrugged. “The language is old, older than almost everything we have records on, and mostly ancestors of our modern symbols. I can connect the runes to their present-day meanings, but it’s hardly a direct translation.”

“Is it enough to tell us what the creature is, and how we can defeat it?”

“Perhaps.” His voice trailed off in thought. “I will need to study them more, but there could be an answer hidden within them.”

“That’s good enough,” she said, surveying the area around them. They were surrounded by more tunnel, and there didn’t seem to be any end in sight.

She sighed, and the sound came heavy off her chest. “We’re tired. Let’s walk a little more to see if we can find any more runes for Loki to read, if we can’t, we’re going to camp for the night.”

They all nodded and began walking again. The cave filled with the soft pads of their steps and the constant drip of water off the rocks. Peace settled on to them again like a blanket.

Thor fell in step with his brother, and Loki silently shifted to the side, wordlessly accommodating Thor’s presence.

Something in that felt important. A wiser man might be able to read into it, look at the way Loki fit himself against his brother, and give an assessment of their relationship. Maybe this man would be able to read their past and future from such a simple action. Maybe he would see it as a manifestation of how Loki felt about Thor.

There were many possibilities, and Thor wasn’t a wise enough man to consider such things.

Anyways, Loki had always been the one to read a million emotions into small signals, sometimes to his own detriment.

He looked to the side, tracing down Loki’s familiar features—straight nose, regal brow, keen green eyes. The small crinkles at the edges of those eyes were newer, but familiar all the same.

Seeing Loki again, breathing and speaking and remarkably alive, made both nostalgia and memory ache in his heart. He wondered if, maybe in a few years, Loki’s face wouldn’t constantly remind him of his deaths.

“You’re staring at me,” Loki said, startling Thor out of his thoughts. His eyes had been lingering on his brother’s face for quite a while, and he was clearly doing a poor job of concealing it. Loki was watching him out of the corner of his eye. “Am I really so good-looking that you can’t take your eyes off of me?”

Thor only hummed, grinning to himself. He didn’t really have much to say. Plus, he knew the silence would annoy Loki to no end.

There were about two minutes of silence between them before Loki predictably rounded on him.

“Seriously Thor what is it?” he snapped, putting his hands on his hips in a petulant manner that made him look a couple centuries younger.

Thor looked down at his little brother, fighting to keep his face impassive.

“Nothing.”

Loki’s eyes narrowed, suspicion growing behind them. Had he been the one born with controlling the weather, Thor was sure a thunderstorm would have been brewing at his back.

Thor tried to move past him, only for Loki to immediately block his path.

How petty would it be to walk straight through his brother?

Probably incredibly petty.

“Tell me, Thor.”

It was easier just to tell him. Otherwise, it would just drive Loki mad, and he’d annoy Thor endlessly about it.

“It’s really nothing to be worried about, brother… I’m just happy.”

“Happy?” Loki said with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes. I’m happy you are here. I’m happy to have you by my side. I’m even happy to hear your whining again. I’m just happy.”

For a rare moment, the silvertongue was shocked into silence, and Thor continued.

“Loki, I’m not sure you realised this, but missing you was like missing a limb. There wasn’t a day that went by when I didn’t wish I could ask you a question, or get your opinion, or to just see you in my life again. I had lost hope that I would ever see you again.

“But now, you’re here, and you’re going to help us escape this nightmare cave. I’ve always wanted you to join my Midgardian companions on a quest.”

Loki stuck out his chin. “And how do you know that I’m going to help your mortals?”

“You will,” Thor chuckled. “You’re predictable in some ways.”

“I am not pre—”

“Hey, Ghost of Villains Past, we found more of your demonic finger paintings!” Tony cut him off, motioning for Loki to come over.

Loki began to walk over, but he stopped when he saw Thor’s smug expression.

“I’m not doing this to help.”

Thor nodded with false belief. “I’m sure you are not.”

Loki looked like he wanted to say something, but couldn’t find the right words for it. So instead, he huffed and went to inspect whatever Tony found. Thor chuckled, following after his brother.

They were stopped in front of another wall covered in runes. These weren’t much different than the ones he had seen before, just more frantic marks that made Thor’s skin crawl.

Loki gave them a quick review, muttering to himself as he began to trace them with a finger.

Everyone was watching him until he scowled back at them.

“I would appreciate it if you didn’t stare at me while I try to focus on translating a long dead language.”

Tony shrugged and walked away, shrugging off his backpack. It landed heavily, and he sat down next to it, his muscles relaxing all at once.

Natasha watched him before similarly taking off her backpack. “This is as good enough a spot as any other. We can camp here for the night and try to figure out an escape from the cave again in the morning. We all still have rations, correct?”

He grimaced and pulled out his extremely unappetizing and partially crushed rations. They crinkled sadly in his hand, and he placed them on the ground. He stuck his hand pack in his pack; he knew he had stuck some pop tarts in here.

To his side, Peter was also frowning at his pathetic plastic rations.

“We don’t even have a fire to warm them up with,” the boy muttered while tearing the pack open.

Suddenly, there was a ‘whoosh’, and a fire lit in the middle of the small circle they had formed as if by magic.

Peter’s eyes were as large as saucers as he gazed in wonder between Loki and the seidr fire. “Oh my Norse gods, thank you Mr. Loki. That was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen!” he cheered, and began to try to heat up his rations.

His brother didn’t even turn from the wall, pretending to be ignorant of the fire he just lit.

The group fell into an amicable chatter as they ate their rations. Tony and Natasha told Thor and Peter about their time alone in the cave. Apparently, they had also been lured by Loki’s created will o’ wisp which had inadvertently led them to the monster.

Thor was heartened to see everyone relaxing and preparing to wind down for the night.

Well, everyone except Loki.

Loki paced.

He paced in an angry straight line with the flickers of the firelight dancing across his skin. He had been growing more and more aggravated by whatever he was reading on the wall. Now, he was glaring a hole into the ground and he flipped one of his daggers between his hands.

Thor recognised that dagger; he had forged it himself and presented it to Loki on one of his birthdays. His mother hadn’t approved of the gift (Loki was too enthusiastic about knives even at that earlier age), but his brother had looked at him like he had pulled down the moon. As they grew older, Thor saw less and less of it as Loki curated a finer collection of blades. It had been so long that Thor hadn’t even realised that Loki had kept it all these years, let alone that he deemed it worthy enough to be stored within his dimensional pocket.

The thought warmed Thor’s heart, and he felt a little piece of him feel whole instead of shattered.

Tony, who was standing on his right side, looked significantly less enthused by the sight of a knife in the hands of the trickster god. But Thor couldn’t find it in himself to care. Actually, it relaxed Thor more than he thought possible. Because it meant Loki was here. That he wasn’t just a figure of Thor’s imagination. That he really was here, and that meant everything was going to somehow be all right.

He ignored that persistent whisper in his head that reminded him how his plan to bring the Aether to Svartalfheim hadn’t ended up all right, how their escape from Sakaar hadn’t ended up all right, how their journey on the Statesman hadn’t ended up all right.

The Man of Iron edged a little closer to Thor, careful not to put his back completely to the dagger twirling between Loki’s hands.

“Is it normal for him to look so… murderous?” Tony asked warily, his voice full of discomfort.

Thor didn’t even try to hold back the laugh that rumbled from his chest, feeling lighter than he had in months. “It only proves that you do not know my brother, if you think that this” —he watched the dagger in Loki’s hand carve a deadly arc in the air— “is murderous. No, Loki looks far more lethal when he is truly angered. This is just him thinking.”

Thor could not help a little smirk. He had gotten used to the humans underestimating his power, and it was amusing to see them do the same to his brother. The mortals had only ever fought Loki when he was severely weakened and holding himself back. They looked at the pieces of his abilities and assumed that was all he could do. They did not even realise how wrong they were, or how effectively Loki could wield his own power.

Mortals had once called them gods, and what the Avengers failed to realise was that they did so for a reason. It was strange to see how quickly they had forgotten it.

Loki growled, a low, dangerous sound, and flung the dagger at the cave wall. Instead of bouncing against the rock, it embedded itself in the stone, cracking a large dent into it.

Beside Thor, Tony startled, his face paling. “How…” He kept looking at Thor, probably wondering why he wasn’t shocked by his brother’s actions or trying to stop it.

Something like pride welled up in him instead.

With a flick of his fingers, Loki called the dagger back to his hands and resumed the deadly twirling of it. The small show of magic only seemed to unnerve Stark further.

Finally, Thor stood with a sigh. Getting amused at Stark’s discomfort probably wasn’t the most charitable thing to do. Carefully, he crossed to the other side of the cave, coming around to Loki’s side.

“Brother, you are unnerving the mortals.” He crossed his arms in front of his chest. He knew this wasn’t going to work, but he had to at least show that it was doing something.

Indeed, it didn’t work.

Loki gave him a flat stare before growling again. “I don’t care.” He threw the dagger again, and it embedded itself in the exact same spot it had before. He wasn’t even looking when he called it back and caught it effortlessly in the air.

Thor sighed, feeling a small headache coming on. Loki was difficult even at his best, and when he was caught in the throes of frustrated problem-solving, he was an absolute terror.

“They are our allies. It would be wise not to scare them.”

Loki’s keen eyes flicked to the mortals, but he still looked distinctly unimpressed.

“They will get over it. It would actually do them right to remember how intimidating I am. They underestimate me.”

Peter’s bubbly voice chirped from the other side of the room. “Do not worry, Mr. Loki, I think you’re very cool and scary!”

Some of Loki’s frustration slid into charmed affection. “Thank you, Peter.”

Tony, though, sounded less than happy by the omission. “Pete, you can’t go around telling supervillains that you think they’re cool. That ruins our whole hero persona.”

Their voices mingled together as Peter insisted that Loki was both “cool” and “not a villain” anymore, and Tony tried to convince him the “Avengers were cooler”.

Thor scoffed and looked back to his strung-out brother. He was fighting to keep his placid façade, but Thor could detect the subtle cracks in it. Anxiety was running high in all of them and Loki always had the unfortunate habit of taking a lot of pressure onto himself. He would never say it, but trying to figure out the species of the creature was obviously eating him up.

“Loki,” Thor said his name to get his attention. His brother gave him a second of acknowledgement, before returning his focus to his twirling dagger.

The quick dismissal was familiar, but Thor was persistent.

“Brother, enough with the knife, you are doing it just for show now. Tell me what haunts your thoughts.”

There was a pause that hung heavy in the cave air before Loki dismissed the knife with a wave of his hand.

“I just do not understand. I have never seen this manner of creature. It seems to be able to move through the veils, and that shouldn’t be possible. The runes on the wall also do little to shed any light on the situation.”

He rubbed at his temples, giving a heavy sigh.

“I know that this is going to be a stupid question to ask, but I feel like I must. Do you have any clues to what the creature could be?”

Thor felt a bit proud of himself because he did have some information for Loki.

“The village people have a legend that could be true. They suspect that we are hunting a Jotunn.”

Loki’s eyes snapped to his, giving Thor one of the driest looks that he had ever received. He suddenly got the sense that he had said something, very, very stupid.

“A Jotunn,” Loki repeated, his lips coming into a thin, dangerous line. He was standing almost perfectly still, but Thor saw a snake about to strike. “Please, Thor, tell me that you didn’t believe something so monumentally stupid.”

Instantly, a wave of embarrassment flashed through him. “It could be,” he protested weakly, but Loki’s look immediately shut him up.

“Thor, the only Jotunn in here is me and, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m dead,” his brother hissed venomously.

“Wait,” Tony sputtered into the conversation, pointing a finger at Loki. His brother grimaced down at it, like he might have bitten it off if he was corporeal. “You’re the monster that we’ve been tracking down.”

A familiar streak of rage boiled in Thor at hearing Loki be called a monster, but before he could snap at Tony, his brother beat him to it.

“Haven’t you been listening?” He gave each of the Avengers an exasperatedly _done_ look. “Have any of you been listening? I just told you that it is literally impossible that there is a _live_ Jotunn down here, a fact that would have been obvious had my brother—” He swung around to shoot a glare at Thor. “—been less of an oaf and actually thought for once.”

Thor crossed his arms in front of his chest. It wasn’t the first time he had been publicly berated by Loki; in fact, it had been a rather common occurrence for them. Loki had never held back from saying _exactly_ what he thought about Thor’s deductive skills and propensity to hammer-bashing as a solution to problems.

Hearing Loki do it, a scene that he thought he would never live through again, made him realise that he had missed even this.

“Wait,” the spider-child piped up, drawing Loki’s attention. “Why is it impossible that a ‘yo-ten’” —he horribly butchered the species name, but neither Thor or Loki corrected him— “could be making the cave all crazy spooky?”

“What is making this cave ‘all crazy spooky’,” Loki said, mouth twisting unhappily at the borrowed words, “is miasma. A rotten and wretched form of seidr that is created through the profane theft of soul from another creature. It is twisted to the point of repulsion and becomes something so aberrant that all living creatures instinctively know to avoid it. The true beast that we are hunting naturally emits the miasma. It soaks into everything it touches and stains the place it dwells. It used it to freeze you all into place with fear.”

Loki met each of their eyes, making sure that they were understanding.

“You’ve felt it haven’t you?” he continued. “That sense of _wrong_ that constantly haunts this cave? The feeling of something slithering across your skin, coating you like oil upon water. It is thick enough for even mortals to be able to perceive.”

Tony and Nat both nodded. Peter shivered, hugging himself and rubbing at his arms as if he could shake the invisible force off.

“It is an unpleasant feeling, and one that is inherent with the beast. Which is why—” Loki whipped around back to Thor— “my brother should have recognised that a Jotunn is physically incapable of creating such an atmosphere, especially after standing next to one for centuries upon centuries.”

Thor would never admit it to Loki (it would give his brother way too much immense satisfaction), but he did feel stupid for not thinking about that.

“Oh,” he muttered, looking at the ground sheepishly. “I guess that makes sense.”

Loki gave him a flat look, and Thor helplessly shrugged his shoulders.

“By the Norns, brother,” Loki sighed heavily, exhaustion flooding into his body all at once. Thor desperately wanted to reach out and touched him, even though he knew it impossible. He didn’t know which hurt more—seeing his brother so drained, or knowing that he couldn’t do anything to relieve the burden.

Loki resumed his pacing, looking like an agitated cat. He muttered an Asgardian curse under his breath and rubbed his forehead again. For a moment, he just looked crumpled and washed-out, until he straightened, fighting to shake the exhaustion from his body. There were still traces of it, though, written into the lines of his face. How tired was Loki? Surely more so than he was letting on.

Thor glanced to the fire that was warming the group and providing them with light. Loki had fought off a monster single-handedly and done multiple spells today; he had earned the right to be tired. If only he would let himself rest.

The thunder god reached out to place a hand on his brother’s shoulder, only to go through it. The trickster looked up flatly, and Thor smiled sheepishly.

“Come, brother, sit down with us. You are tired, and the runes will not run away.”

Loki opened his mouth like he was going to fight, but the words seemed to die on his tongue. He sighed, the tension easing out of him.

“Yeah, okay,” he agreed, and Thor had to keep himself from blinking in surprise. He ushered Loki over to the group, and his younger brother practically collapsed next to the Spider-child.

“Hey, Mr. Loki,” the boy brightly greeted through a mouthful of rations.

Thor knew Loki hated when people talked with their mouth full, but his brother was either too tired or too fond of the boy to mention it.

“Hello, Peter, how is your meal?”

The boy wrinkled his nose as he looked down to the food. “Not good. I think it was supposed to be beef stroganoff, but the meat is questionable.” He hesitated, glancing between Loki and the meal.

“Would you like some?” he offered.

Loki answered quickly and certainly. “No.”

Peter laughed. “I don’t blame you.”

They fell into a gentle silence, and Thor sunk down on his brother’s other side. He found the pop tart he had been searching for earlier and began to heat it with the conjured fire.

It didn’t take long before Peter began asking questions again.

“So, magic,” he started, and it was obvious that he had been excitedly waiting for this opportunity. “How does it work, and can you teach me?”

Loki chuckled, the sound low and warm from his chest. “The technical name is seidr. It’s a manipulation of the fabric of Yggdrasil itself, and I’m sorry, but it is quite difficult for a Midgardian to master.”

“But it’s possible?” Hope glittered in the boy’s eyes.

Loki hesitated, a swirl of emotions flickering over his face and undoubtedly a few memories to go along with them. Teaching Midgardians magic was indeed possible, just very rare, and a practice that had fallen out of fashion centuries ago. Humans were stubbornly stuck on their version of the universe, which meant opening up to other perspectives was hard for them. 

Asgardians used to intervene in the lives of mortals more frequently. Thor guessed that was how their names were weaved into their legends and myths. Thor and Loki together had made many journeys to Midgard and tussled across its surface in their youth. 

Thor had taken training alongside the warriors (of course) and besting whatever Earth had to offer.

His brother, predictably, went the more scholarly route, and had taken to teaching humans small elements of seidr. He had always enjoyed showing off his magic, and Midgardians were so easy to impress. Their short lives meant they never truly mastered the art, but Loki had managed to have a couple very proficient students whose names still lived on in human history. 

Human lives were fleeting, though, and more time placed into them, only meant more heartbreak in the end.

Thor already knew that losing his current companions would be harder than any Midgardian loss before. He had a suspicion that losing the Avengers was going to feel like losing Asgard all over again with pieces of his heart torn out and laid open. 

Loki, though, hadn’t made those connections. Not yet, at least. 

The boy was asking for lessons, but he was also asking for so much more. 

Not only for Loki’s affection now, but for his heartbreak a thousand years from now. Long past Peter, long past the Avengers, long past when their Midgardian bones had turned to dust and their names had faded from tongues. Their own planet wouldn’t remember, but they would.

That was the destiny of immortals, after all, the part the fates didn’t speak of until you’d already tied your heart to a hundred others. 

It was always the fate of a god to live by the responsibility they took, and to be haunted by the love they gave.

And the boy, a simple Midgardian boy, was asking Loki to forever be changed by him, to allow himself to be tamed by him, to take responsibility for him. It was much to ask, especially of Loki who had been bitten by devotion before and zealously guarded his feelings close to his chest.

Thor saw him come to a decision. His face smoothed, his mouth quirked with affection, but a tinge of sadness filled his eyes. Loki tried to scrub it away before the boy could see, but Thor knew his brother well.

“With a skilled teacher, all things are possible. I can teach you to weave the strings of reality itself, if you are willing to put in the effort.” Loki winked at the boy, an action that Thor couldn’t remember Loki ever doing.

The child leaned closer, hanging onto his brother’s every word. “Of course, Mr. Loki, of course I will work harder than anyone ever.” The boy’s face darkened a bit in confusion. “But how is ‘manipulating the fabric of Yig-basil’—,”

“—Yggdrasil.”

“—Yggdrasil even possible?”

Loki looked to the ceiling, trying to think of a way to explain it to a mortal. Midgardians were stubbornly tied to what they thought of reality. Hel, they had even managed to convince themselves that they were the only intelligent species in the universe.

What proud, strange creatures they were.

“Yggdrasil is the thread that connects all things to the reality they inhabit. A seidrmaster learns how to manipulate these threads and to weave a lie so beautiful that even the universe believes it.”

“So wait, you can turn a teacup into a kitten by lying to the universe?”

Loki gave the boy a dangerous smile that was all sharp teeth. “It has to be a particularly wonderous lie, but yes.”

Thor chuckled, the sound rumbling through the room. “You will find that my brother has well-earned his title of ‘God of Lies’ through his clever practices of seidr.”

The boy cocked his head, looking like an inquisitive puppy for a moment. “I thought you said he was the ‘God of Stories’, not the ‘God of Lies’?”

The trickster huffed, head in one hand and waving the words off with the other. “Lies, stories, they are one in the same. Which one you use to refer to me mainly has to do with how charitable you are feeling towards me in the moment.”

“And you can teach me how to magic-lie?”

“Perhaps,” Loki said with a playful tone. “What will you give me in return? What sacrifices to a god will you make?”

Peter scratched the back of his neck and spoke with a little nervousness. “You’re not going to ask for my first-born are you?”

Loki didn’t answer, and Peter scrambled to come up with an idea.

“Umm, I could teach you something too, maybe? I’m sure there’s a lot of Earth things that you don’t know.”

Loki raised an inquisitive eyebrow, looking thoroughly amused by the boy’s offer. “Well, go ahead, Midgardian, teach a god a trick.”

The boy was obviously nervous at having Loki’s full attention fully on him. He picked at the skin on his palm, and worried at his bottom lip between his teeth. He took a couple moments before his face turned serious.

“I will teach you an important Earth hand motion: the fist bump.”

Thor brightened. “Oh, I know this one! The Man of Iron and the Hawk Archer taught me this.”

“You’re right I did!” Tony called from across the fire. Thor hadn’t noticed, but they were watching this whole exchange.

The thunder god raised his hand in a fist and Peter smiled at his correct form “Yeah, that’s it, Mr. Thor.”

“So then all you do is...” Peter extended his hand forward and gently tapped his and Thor’s fist together. “And then, yeah, you got it.”

Loki stared at the bumped fists like Peter had laid out a complicated math problem before him. Thor was similarly gazing at his and Peter’s hands in wonder.

“I understand the general motion.” He waved his hand dismissively. “But _why?”_

Thor raised his head and levelled Loki with a serious gaze. Both he and his brother had never spent much time on Midgard and were unfamiliar with their customs, especially as the planet rapidly shifted. His journeys through the realm and his Midgardian friends had been much help in teaching him their practices, and he was eager to share this knowledge with Loki. “I am told that this movement is an important signifier of a mutual victory on Midgard. It is to be done between friends and brothers-in-arms when they celebrate and rejoice.”

Peter had to bite his lip to keep from laughing and pretended to look gravely serious when Loki glanced at him. The trickster searched his face, and Peter couldn’t help but squirm a little under the intense gaze.

Thor felt some sympathy for him. He had been on the end of Loki’s intensity many times, and it was a harrowing and claustrophobic thing. Peter also didn’t know Loki well enough to pick up on the slight twitch in his brother’s lip that signalled he was enjoying the jest.

“I see…” His brother’s voice was cool and smooth, and his eyes didn’t stray from young Peter’s.

The boy flailed a little, drawing his hand back and instead positioning Thor’s fist so it faced Loki. “Okay, now you try.”

Loki’s eyebrow quirked in amusement, but he kept his placid demeanour. “But he cannot touch me,” he said, holding up a translucent hand as if Peter forgot.

Peter shook his head. “That’s not the point, Mr. Loki, the point is in the action.” He bumped his own fists together, just to get the message across. Thor had to give the boy credit; he was quite persistent.

“Yes, Loki, the point is in the action,” he repeated like he was talking to a small child, just to be petulant. His brother, of course, shot him a dry look.

“Please, please, please,” The spider-child pleaded, his eyes huge and sparkling. Thor didn’t even need to see his brother to know that Loki was done for. He always had trouble saying ‘no’ to children. “You cannot leave Mr. Thor hanging.”

“Yes, Loki, you cannot leave me hanging,”

Loki seemed to be about two seconds away from sliding a dagger between Thor’s ribs, his lack of a physical body be damned.

“Leave him hanging off of what,” he muttered under his breath as he formed his hand into a fist, “he is sitting right in front of me.”

Then, with a delicate motion, Loki pretended to bump his fist against Thor’s. Thor couldn't feel Loki’s hand at all, but it was just as the spider-boy said: the point was in the movement.

Peter cheered, adding his own hand to the mix so it became a three-way fist bump.

“Awesome! And now fireworks.” The boy pretended to burst his hand, twitching his fingers to be sparkles.

Loki looked completely befuddled by what the point of the motion was, but he similarly stretched his fingers out. He added real sparks to his ‘fireworks’ though, lighting the darkness with a burst of glittering gold light.

“Like that?” he asked, glancing at Peter for confirmation. Loki’s face was open, and he suddenly looked his actual age instead of the hardened maturity that his fate had forced him into. Thor wished he could take that innocence and tuck it away to be protected so that the world couldn’t try to shatter it again.

Peter had his mouth wide open and was staring at Loki’s hand.

“That was…” He finally found his tongue. “The new coolest thing I have ever seen, Mr. Loki.” Then the boy became a flurry of movement, leaning into Thor’s little brother with wide, eager eyes. “Was that more magic? Please tell me that was magic. Can you teach me to do that too?”

The small show of magic had burst the dam of Peter’s questions, and he flooded the god with all of them at once.

Loki helplessly watched, completely lost on what to do. He tried to answer some of Peter's questions, but the boy’s enthusiasm was just ploughing through Loki’s hesitation. His brother looked to him for help, and Thor only smiled at him.

When was the last time someone had been so interested in Loki’s abilities and unabashedly eager to learn about it?

When was the last time someone had so earnestly tried to be Loki’s friend?

That thought gave Thor pause.

He couldn’t remember any time when someone had genuinely wanted to be Loki’s friend, happy to have Loki as _himself_ without asking anything more of him.

His brow furrowed as he searched through his memories. He could recall a couple of generic faces, other students from their tutoring sessions, but no names came attached. Certainly, not anyone that Thor could remember clearly.

But Loki had to have friends other than Thor, Sif and the Warriors Three (a group that had always had a rocky relationship with Loki), he had to…

He had to…

He couldn’t have been alone for so long.

Thor looked at Loki, who was now crafting a small illusion of a snow fox for Peter. The wispy, silver creature could fit in the boy’s palm, and he giggled as the illusion scampered up on his shoulder.

How blind had Thor been to his brother?

“Peter, if you’re done teaching the deities how to be human, could you ask Casper the Psychotic Ghost to turn the fire down? Me and Nat are going to try to catch some sleep, and you should too.”

“Yeah, okay, Mr. Stark,” Peter agreed, beginning to unroll his blanket from his pack. He lay down between the billionaire and the gods. With a wave of his hand, Loki dimmed the fire light into something more suitable for sleeping.

“Goodnight everyone,” he called before finally settling down.

Within a couple minutes, the Midgardians were fast asleep, and the brothers finally got a bit of privacy.

“You’re fond of him,” Thor said, apropos of nothing. The embers of the fire crackled and cast a soft glow on him and Loki.

“How could I not be?” his brother admitted in naked honesty. Even now, his face was soft as he looked at the boy.

“It is good. You’ve been alone for too long, Loki, and I fear that I have been oblivious to it most of my life.”

Loki shrugged, and the action made Thor’s stomach turn. “I am used to it by now.”

He wanted to be angry at the statement, but it only made him feel hollow and disappointed in himself. “You shouldn’t be, though. I should have been there.”

“Sometimes that was the problem, Thor. You were there too much. You shone too brightly, and I became a shadow. You took every bit of attention and left none for me.” Loki gave a harsh laugh. The sound seemed to stick on the back of his throat before it came out.

“I am sorry, Loki,” he sighed with his shoulders slumped forward. Everything that he had done wrong sprung to the front of his mind and seemed to physically weigh on him. Grief and regret settled heavy in his heart.

He had done so much wrong. He had so much to ask Loki’s forgiveness for. He could probably spend the rest of his life pleading for that forgiveness, and it still wouldn’t be enough to make up for all his mistakes.

“Thor, you great lug.” Loki’s voice startled him from his own mind. “Do what you do best and stop thinking.”

“But, Loki, I have so much to ask forgiveness for and—”

“And I don’t want to hear it,” Loki cut him off. “The past is in the past, and we’ve both made mistakes. I believe it would do us both some good if we tried not to let ourselves be constantly haunted by it.”

It was ironic for Loki to say that. Not just because he was a ghost, but because Thor knew that he had his own demons that were trailing him. Loki had always been one to keep secrets, to take memories and push them so far back in his head that they became something else. Those secrets and memories—they were clearly still the phantoms he saw when he looked into the dark.

They both had darkness in their minds, but Thor also felt hope. Because for once in a long time, they were together, and they could deal with this together.

Together they were stronger. Stronger than any of the ghosts that lingered in their heads.

“You should get some sleep, brother. I believe I’m starting to see dark circles form under your eyes,” Thor said softly and, amazingly, Loki didn’t protest, which was a testament to how tired he truly was.

Loki looked around him for a moment, hesitantly trying to find a place to rest. None of them had extra blankets, which left Loki to the bare floor. Thor wasn’t sure whether his brother could actually feel the rough ground, but he simply looked too sad curled up on the ground like some kind of stray dog.

“Come, Loki.” Thor motioned him over. There was a pause, in which Thor was sure that Loki was going to protest and complain about his “smothering”, but instead his little brother silently shuffled towards him. It was rare for Loki to be so uncharacteristically compliant, and it was typically only brought on when Loki was truly exhausted. It had been centuries since Thor had last seen Loki in such a mood. It reminded Thor of the days when his brother allowed himself to be carried off to bed, often falling asleep en route with his head cradled on Thor’s collarbone.

He watched as his little brother settled on the blanket, eventually finding a position he was comfortable with. Thor thought that he might have fallen asleep, but then he cracked an eye open.

“Are you going to sleep too?” he asked, his voice rumbly with sleep. He looked centuries younger and more innocent, like the world had never touched him with its cruelty.

Thor smiled, and tried to brush some of the hair from Loki’s face. “I will, but I would like to keep watch for a couple hours before I do.”

Loki already seemed to be falling asleep as Thor answered, and by the end of the sentence, his eyes were closed, and his breaths evened out.

Thor felt a bit of him melt and warm in affection. He tried to brush his hand through Loki’s curls, and couldn’t feel it at all. But he had done this thousands of times, and he could imagine the strands under his hand. If he closed his eyes, he could just trick himself into thinking that the warmth of the small fire was Loki’s own, and the chill of the cave was the puff of Loki’s breath.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was enough.

Loki being here was more than enough.

He had thought that he’d never see his brother again. He had thought that all of his family had been stolen away. He had thought the Norns would only ever take from him.

But instead, by some kind of miracle, they deemed him worthy enough to be given something back for all his suffering.

He would never say that Loki wasn’t enough, not when he knew how broken he was without him.

Despite all his desires, though, he couldn’t help but feel that something was hanging in the balance. The lines between life and death were thin here, and Thor feared that Loki could just as easily swing back across the veil. Especially when the lurking creature seemed so keen on dragging them all into death.

He would be damned if he let his brother return to death again. He would sooner die himself than let that happen.

A shiver ran up his spine, an eerie foreboding setting into his head like fog rolling over a lake.

He looked out into the darkness and hoped (oh how he desperately hoped) that he would be enough to protect Loki from the monsters that threatened to pull him into the abyss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone and thank you for reading another chapter in this little story! 
> 
> If you've been following me since the beginning, you might remember that this was supposed to be 6 chapters long... Well, I might have lied about that... It is now 9 chapters, and I have the sneaking suspicion that it might become 10. Whelp. I also said this was going to 10k words and look at us now. You all are getting more content (and brodinson hugs) than I originally intended.
> 
> Fun fact: the scene where Ghost!Loki is pacing, Tony is intimidated by it and Thor gives his Jotunn theory, was actually the scene that started this entire fic. It popped into my head one day, and I created the rest of the story around it until it grew into a fully-fledged fic. 
> 
> Next chapter is about half-written, but it probably won't be going up till mid or late December because I have finals for law school until then :/. It's so much more fun to write about Loki and Thor bickering than to be writing boring legal documents, but sacrifices must be made. But I really like how the ending of this fic is coming along, you all are going to love it :).
> 
> Please leave a kudos and comment if you enjoyed the story. Flattery gets you everywhere. If you ask nicely enough it might even get you a sentence out of the next chapter.


	7. The Things from Stories and Nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki and Thor have a feeling talk. Loki makes a deduction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another day, another chapter!
> 
> Not much to say up top except thank you to my beta, Sundial_at_Night. She is very, very helpful and lovely and makes this story much better!

Chapter 7: The Things from Stories and Nightmares

Thor did end up getting a small amount of sleep that night. After a couple of hours of looking listlessly into the darkness and reliving his worst memories, he finally lay down and managed to fall into a restless slumber. He woke but didn’t get up, and instead stared at his brother’s neck in a way that he would probably call “creepy”.

It comforted him to see it pale and unbroken, unmarred by the Titan’s touch. He hoped that he’d never have to see it hurt again.

Loki snuffled in his sleep, a sound that made him seem impossibly young. He rolled on to his back, his face placid before it started to crinkle in whatever nightmare was haunting him. Thor wished that he could smooth it away.

His shifting was slowly becoming more violent, and his snuffles were turning into pained words.

“No, no, no…” he whispered, his hands clenching and unclenching. “No, Thor, don’t leave me here.”

Thor’s heart tightened painfully, and it suddenly felt like all the air had been taken out of the room. Loki was having nightmares about him. 

It wasn’t the first time.

Thor had become intimately acquainted with Loki’s brutal nightmares on the  _ Statesman.  _ They had shared a room and nearly every night was filled with Loki’s cries. Sometimes Thor could tell what the dreams were about. Loki cried for someone to “stop”, to “have mercy”, to “please, please no” in whatever torture they were dealing out. Occasionally, that someone would be named “Thanos”, or “the Other” or, most heartbreakingly, as Thor himself.

It hurt more than any dagger hearing his own brother beg Thor not to kill him in his sleep.

“Loki,” Thor whispered, hoping that he could draw his brother from whatever horror he was trapped in. “Please wake up.”

“No, please don’t hurt me,” Loki pleaded, whipping his head to the side. He made a sound in the back of his throat that sounded strangled.

“Mr. Thor, is he alright?” Thor startled. He didn’t even realise that Peter was awake.

The boy shuffled over carefully, clearly distressed by Loki’s own distress. “Can I do anything to help?” 

Thor nodded, wishing he could tell Peter something else. “I am sorry, Spider-child. Usually I shake him awake, but…” He motioned vaguely to Loki and his semi-translucent state. No, he could not rely on his usual methods this time. On the  _ Statesman,  _ Loki would wake up from a particularly violent nightmare, and Thor would hold him close to his chest, able to rely on physical comfort to chase the bad dreams away. They never spoke, only silently supported each other when the other was spiraling. He never knew what to say during those times anyway, he let his actions speak for him.

But what good would that do if he couldn’t even touch his brother. 

Suddenly, Loki gave a short scream and really began thrashing.

“What the…” Tony yelped awake, scrambling to find what was wrong. Beside him, Natasha had already drawn a gun and was looking for someone to shoot.

Loki writhed in imagined pain, and seeing it was like a sword to the heart.

“Jesus, what the hell is wrong with him?” Tony said as he came over to Loki.

Thor didn’t lift his eyes up from his brother. “He has nightmares.”

Natasha raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “These are nightmares?”

“Nightmares of what?” Tony’s eyes were wide with horror.

Thor fought the urge to steal his brother away and take him from all the Midgardians’ prying eyes. “My brother has not had the easiest life,” he said in Loki’s defence.

Loki’s murmurings became more and more frantic. His hands seemed to be trying to claw at something. His legs kicked out, and Thor was strung with the memory of Loki hanging from the Titan’s hand.

“You’re not kidding. That’s a hell of a lot of PTSD that’s trapped up in your brother’s head,” Tony said, and there was a bit of sympathy in his tone. It was the first time Tony was really seeing his brother, not as the villain the Titan had twisted him into, but what had occurred to bring him to that point.

Loki made another sound of pain, louder and more hysterical. His chest stuttered, and he seemed to be having a hard time taking in air. He seized, and Thor thought he was going to scream again, but the only sound that came out of Loki was a single heart-breaking whimper.

Peter surged forward like he was going to do something, but remembered that he couldn’t touch the god. “Mr. Thor, we have to do something,” he insisted.

He wanted to. He really did. But what could he do? He couldn’t touch his brother, and talking to him didn’t seem to be working.

“Loki, please wake up,” he tried, louder this time, reaching for his brother’s shoulder. Hoping against all logic that just this time, his hand wouldn’t pass through Loki’s body. It hurt him more than it had before when he didn’t even feel a wisp of Loki. He might as well have taken an arrow to the chest.

His brother’s whimpers were becoming even more desperate, and Thor felt himself dipping into cold panic.

What would happen if Loki couldn’t breathe? Did he even need air as a ghost? His chest was rising and falling as if he was taking breaths. What if those breaths stopped?

The flash of memory—his brother scrabbling at the Titan’s hand, the snap of his neck, the thud of his body hitting the floor—and Thor found himself nearly drowning in it.

“Please, Mr. Thor.” Peter’s voice startled him before the memory’s fangs could truly dig into him. “You have to help him. Didn’t you wake him up before?” The poor boy seemed to be blinking back tears as he looked between the thunder god and his seizing brother.

Thor thought back to the previous morning. He had woken Loki by accident; perhaps it could work again?

But Loki had hated it. His brother hadn’t said it in so many words, but Thor caught the ugly flicker of memory that raced through him when he had seen Thor’s arm through his chest. Loki was sensitive about that scar; it was the only one he couldn’t magic away, and it would stay written on his chest forever. Thor did what he could to not draw attention to it, but he couldn’t do anything about the fact that Loki would have to live with it forever.

He only hoped that he wouldn’t be taking a step back with this.

“I’m sorry, brother,” he whispered, even though he knew the words went unheard. It felt like disloyalty to say nothing.

Thor took a breath, hesitating for a moment to reconsider his decision. Then, Loki made a desperate, keening noise in the back of his throat that tugged at Thor’s heartstrings and made his protectiveness roar to the forefront. He didn’t hesitate this time.

He plunged his hand into Loki’s chest, but he couldn’t shake the feeling of cold betrayal as he did it. He couldn’t feel Loki’s heart, but he could imagine the organ, fluttering and as delicate as a bird.

Loki’s eyes snapped open, and he jolted back into the waking world. He sucked in a frantic breath, his mouth falling in shock. A moment passed where they just stared at each other. A dark part of his mind laughed at the irony of it—It wasn’t the first time he had seen Loki impaled through the heart; he wondered how many times the fates would force him to see it.

Something in the moment snapped, and Loki’s face twisted with cold fury.

“Out,” he hissed, “Get it out!” He tried to yank out Thor’s hand and only snarled in frustration when he couldn’t. His brother looked like a wild thing, caught and growling with a tinge of instinctive panic. Perhaps, if his teeth were physical, maybe he would have bitten off Thor’s hand.

Thor jerked, taking his hand out of Loki’s chest. His brother held his arms close, as if protecting himself, and looked down to see if there was a hole.

The thunder god would have liked to bundle Loki into his arms like they had done when they were young. Though, Loki would have never allowed it at this age.

Thor sighed, looking up and seeing at that the Midgardians were still gathered around them. He wasn’t the only one who noticed; Loki was crouched from their gaze and held the distinct look of a cornered animal. The trickster hated appearing weak, and Thor could see him struggling to maintain his composure in front of the Midgardians. He was at war with himself, caught between being hurt by Thor, and trying to appear unflappable.

“Friends,” Thor said, drawing their attention away from his little brother’s breakdown. “I would appreciate it if you could give me and my brother a moment of privacy.”

Tony took the hint immediately. “Yeah, sure, just give us a shout if you need us,” he said, ushering Peter forward. The boy hesitated; he obviously wanted to stay and make sure the brothers were okay, but he allowed Tony to tug him away. Natasha gave Thor a small smile before padding after the other humans.

Both gods watched the Midgardians, eyes following the bob of their flashlights as they moved a respectful distance away. Loki gave a heavy sigh, sounding like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. The magician raised a hand, a witchlight flickering into existence and filling the space around them with a warm, green-tinged light.

Thor was glad to see his brother had lost that frantic-animal look in his eyes, but he still looked distinctly miserable.

“What troubles you, brother?” Thor said gently and slowly. He was careful to make sure he didn’t make his words demanding, only open. His brother had never been keen on sharing his thoughts. But they had made some progress on the Statesman, and Thor had found that with enough patience and tenderness, he could pry the words out of Loki.

The trickster gave a harsh, humourless laugh that might as well have been strangled in thorns. “What doesn’t trouble me? My life has certainly had enough troubles, so it figures that those hounds would continue to chase me into death.”

Thor didn’t know what to say to that. Words were never his forte, and more often than not, his words only led him into increasingly dire situations. It was even harder considering that Loki wielded words as skilfully as one of his daggers.

Loki looked out into the darkness, his face pale and unreadable. Thor sat next to him, waiting until Loki inevitably spoke again. There were some things the universe could be sure about, and one of them was Loki’s inability to keep quiet. If it wasn’t for the circumstances (the looming monster, his brother’s semi-transparency, the blood of innocents sprayed on the walls), the moment would be almost peaceful.

“Thor.” Loki’s voice was hollow and put a deep sense of dread in him. Whatever Loki was about to say next wasn’t going to be easy to hear. Loki finally spoke, and Thor could hear the cracks in his carefully constructed armour. “Why were you so quick to believe the monster could be a Jotunn?”

Thor took in a breath and felt his heart constrict in his chest.

“Where did that come from?” he asked, trying to force some levity.

Loki shrugged in a way that looked distinctly miserable. “I didn’t forget it when you said it. I just didn’t talk about it at the time.”

He should have figured that Loki wouldn’t have missed his mentioning of the Jotunns. How could he? Not when the simple sentences held so much beneath them. He knew his own ugly prejudice. He recognised it, curled in the pit of his stomach, shoved into a dark, cold corner, but still there. It was a creature of all the lies Asgard had told as he grew up. It was all the slurs and the twisted jokes and the casual dismissal of an entire race of people. It bared its fangs and made the things that stalked his nightmares become the twisted caricatures of Jotunns from his storybooks.

He had been trying to stop it. He had tried to kill the monster inside, but he still found himself grappling with it. It was as if the hatred of Asgard was baked into his very bones.

Loki was staring, and Thor realised that it had been too long since he had spoken. He was already messing up. He hadn’t even spoken yet, and he was already making a disaster of this conversation. But what could he say? That he didn’t think that Jotunns were monsters, even though he couldn’t shake the way that his mind called up monstrous depictions of them. That he still had trouble reckoning the image of his innocent baby brother against them.

So, Thor said the only thing that he could possibly say: “I’m sorry.”

Loki scowled, but he didn’t shake the lost look from his eyes. “You’re sorry for what?”

Thor felt traitorous tears prickle at his eyes. How many times was he going to cry in this Norns-damned cave. “I’m sorry I can’t be better. And that I believed it so easily. I know that all Jotunns aren’t monsters, I know that but...” His tears came faster, and the guilt chewed at his insides. He was pathetic. He couldn’t even admit it to his brother.

He turned away, hoping to keep Loki from seeing his tears.

“Norns, Thor, are you crying?” The anger in Loki’s voice had disappeared, and it was replaced with shocked disbelief. Thor never had been able to hide much from Loki.

“No,” Thor grumbled, shoving his face away when Loki leaned in closer, butting into his personal space.

“You are,” Loki whispered in astonishment. He tried to get in closer, and Thor rolled away more, even though he knew it was petty and useless against Loki’s persistent curiosity.

Sure enough, his brother had shoved himself into Thor’s view and was reviewing the thunder god’s blotchy face. He had an unreadable expression, face illuminated by by the warm light of the flickering, conjured flame.

“Why are you crying?” The trickster tilted his head.

“Because I’m a terrible brother. I know Jotunns aren’t monsters. I know you’re not a monster, but when I saw the monster in the cave, I still thought it was a Jotunn.”

Loki was silent. When Thor chanced a look at him, he saw his brother looking down contemplatively. Probably thinking about how horrible Thor was.

“I guess, I did ask the question, but I did not imagine you would have such a response.”

“What were you imagining?” Thor snapped, more angry at himself than Loki. His brother didn’t rise to it.

“I didn’t know. That is why I asked. Though, I probably would have thought that you’d give a casual dismissal or declare Jotunns as monsters as you did before,” said Loki simply. There was no hint of accusation in his tone, just bare honesty. He lay on his back again, looking up at the dark ceiling of the cave.

Thor shrugged. “I’m afraid I might not be better than that. Though I did not speak the accusation aloud, my heart whispered the same hatred.”

Loki remained frustratingly silent, and Thor’s anger against himself reared its ugly head.

Finally, his brother spoke. “I cannot blame you, brother. I often think the same.”

“What?” How could that be possible? Loki was a Jotunn himself.

The trickster rolled his eyes. “Is it that hard to believe?”

“Yes?” Thor said with disbelief.

Loki gave him a flat look that would have made Thor laugh, if he didn’t look so serious about it. “Thor, you great oaf, we were raised together. Of course, my first instinct is to hate the Frost Giants. By the Norns, Thor, I tried to weaponise the Bifrost against their planet. Isn’t that evidence enough?”

“I tried to assassinate their king, your true father, after he called me a ‘princess’.”

Loki grimaced at the mention of the word “father”. Thor still wasn’t sure about where he stood on that. In his last moments, he had named himself an Odinson, but Thor had heard him introduce himself as “Laufeyson” and “of Jotunheim” before too. It was still strange to hear Loki claim the other realm, especially considering they had both only visited Jotunheim probably three times before Thor’s disastrous coronation.

“Enough, should we truly begin fighting over who’s violent acts were worse?”

Thor hummed. “I guess that wouldn’t be a productive use of our time.”

Loki was quiet, and Thor suspected that it would be the end of the conversation. But Loki always managed to surprise.

“To tell the truth, Thor, when I first saw the painting of the creature on the wall, my first instinct was to believe that it was a Jotunn. Of course, I threw out the idea when I realised how ridiculous it was.”

Loki shot Thor another exasperated look before continuing, “If you declare hatred in your heart, then I must declare that the same hatred lives inside me too. It changed us in different ways; It made you arrogant and reckless, and it made me bitter and cruel. But it hurt us both in the same way, tied us together with the same hateful cord.”

“So, like you, I have to remind myself that Jotunns are not monsters.”

They dipped into quiet, caught in their own thoughts. Thor couldn’t help but think of all the years before. The years he had been caught in his own ignorant view of his place in the realms. He looked at his brother and tried to imagine what his life would be like if Loki had been raised on Jotunheim.

Would he have hated him on sight? Would he have seen Loki and only wished to crush his skull? Would he have killed Loki instead taking the time to find out what a mischievous, bold, and brilliantly intelligent person he was?

The answer was clear, even if it did hurt Thor’s soul: he would have seen Loki as he would any other Jotunn—a monster to be exterminated.

Looking at his brother, Thor took in his features, which were familiar as Thor’s own. It was still hard to believe that Loki could be anything but his little brother, the blood running through their veins be damned. He had seen Loki shapeshift into hundreds of different skins, and none of them had ever made him less of Thor’s brother.

Being a Jotunn shouldn’t change anything, and yet, he couldn’t help but feel that this shift was greater than any other.

Thor paused, his mouth twisting into a frown. He had seen Loki take hundreds of different forms, but his natural birth form had never been one of them.

“Loki, are you hiding your true skin from me?”

Loki snapped his eyes towards Thor, and he suddenly felt like he stepped into a much murkier swamp than he had fully realised. Loki’s gaze was as deadly as a viper accessing potential prey. “What?”

“It’s... umm,” Thor started awkwardly, “nothing to be ashamed about.” He hated how much the sentence sounded like a question. “You can show me if you wish.”

Loki’s keen eyes didn’t leave him, and Thor squirmed under the gaze. Finally, his brother released him, looking back up to the cave ceiling. “I had forgotten you have never seen it.”

That wasn’t a direct “no”, which was better than Thor had expected.

“Will you still show me?”

Loki met his gaze again, this time with a confused crinkle between his brows. “Why do you wish to see?”

Thor shrugged, trying to act obviously casual, so as not to spook away the consideration Loki was giving him. “I am curious.”

There was a protracted pause, and Thor wondered if ‘curious’ was the wrong thing to say. Loki could take it as innocent, or he could take it as Thor considering him an exotic bauble to be gazed upon. In truth, he was curious. He had a hard time wrapping his head around the fact that Loki could be anything but Aesir.

After all, it was one thing to know it as a fact, and another thing to see it presented plainly.

And, more darkly, another small part of him needed confirmation—not that Loki was Jotunn, but that Thor would still be able to see his brother in a foreign skin.

It was silly, considering that he had seen Loki as hundreds of different species, but he needed proof for himself. Proof that he could overcome his ingrained hatred. Proof that he wasn’t so tainted that he couldn’t bear to see Loki fit in blue. Proof that he wasn’t the true monster between the two of them.

Images of a darker Thor stalked through his head. One that wouldn’t have hesitated to crack open his own brother’s skull had he seen him in Jotunn skin. One that Thor still feared he might become, as if Loki’s Jotunn form would trigger a long-held hatred from him.

Thor held his brother’s eyes, sure that Loki would refuse, but instead Loki gave way. The shift trickled over him, turning milky white into blue. Along with the blue came the delicate lines that Thor had always thought were tattoos. His brother stubbornly didn’t look at him throughout the shift, but Thor could see a hint of the red in eyes.

He had thought the moment would feel huge. That when he saw Loki’s Jotunn form, everything in their relationship would shift permanently. That all of Thor’s fears and hates would come roaring forward at once.

But instead, it felt small. Insignificant even. 

Because, even in this different form, it was still so obviously Loki.

“Huh,” Thor said eloquently, and Loki scowled.

His brother sat up suddenly, his entire body filled with tension.

“All you can think to say is ‘huh’?” Loki hissed. He should sound angry, but Thor heard the naked fear underlying words. It suddenly struck Thor that Loki could have been as afraid of this moment as Thor had been.

“I had never known the markings were natural. I had always thought they were an aesthetic choice the Jotunns made.”

Loki blinked, his mouth dropping open. He seemed to struggle for words, before they disappeared into a strained laugh. He pulled his legs close to his body, and his fingers twitched nervously against his palm.

“I thought they were too. I have them all over, though. My hands, my face, my chest. Everywhere.”

“Even on your—”

Loki’s sharp look shut him up before he dared finish the question.

“What do they mean?” Thor asked instead, and Loki shrugged.

“I don’t know. I don’t know nearly anything about this body,” he said cryptically before giving a harsh chuckle. “I realise that it is foolish now, but when I first found out, I had this irrational fear that I could be harbouring a Jotunn disease unknown to Asgard. I worried that one day I would suddenly drop dead, and no one would know what had happened, least of all me. I didn’t know who to turn to, and I was more afraid of giving people more reasons to hate me, so I just didn’t say anything.”

A cold chill ran down Thor’s spine, as he imagined what Loki said. His heart broke as he mind constructed a smaller, terrified Loki, frightened by his own biology, but even more scared 

“Father had said it was my birth right to die,” Loki continued, “and I was born a runt. Would it be so far out of possibility that my biology could be secretly damning me?”

Thor’s blood ran cold.

“Father told you that?” he asked. He had to fight to keep the red fury out of his voice. Thor felt Loki’s eyes on him as his anger simmered, but didn’t meet his gaze.  _ Why would he say that?  _

Loki just looked confused. “Yes, at my trial, if you can call it that. I believe it was supposed to make me feel grateful to him before he sentenced me to death. It only proved to me how he really saw me. I hadn’t truly believed he would kill me until that moment.”

“But he didn’t sentence you to death, only to the prisons.” It couldn’t have been as possible as bad as Loki said.

“For life, though, Thor,” Loki insisted. “He sentenced me to solitary confinement for thousands of years without a hope of pardon or reform. It is a much slower execution, but an execution nonetheless.”

Thor shivered. He had never thought of it like that. He had always thought that it had been a mercy his father had given Loki, not an added cruelty.

How many times? How many times had Thor been mistaken about what was truly happening? How many times had he interpreted a punishment to be a blessing and left Loki to suffer alone?

“I did not realise how harsh Asgard was to you. It hurts my heart to realise that I had been fooled by its golden lies for such a long time, and that you had been hurt by them in the meantime.”

Another thought burrowed into Thor’s mind, and it forced him to ask. “Why didn’t you just leave, Loki? You certainly could have. You’ve been able to hide from Heimdall’s sight for centuries. Your shapeshifting meant that you have lived on any number of planets without us finding you. If your Asgard had been that unkind to you, even in our youth, then why not simply run away and live somewhere else?”

Loki met his eyes. The blue left his body, and he shifted back into his Aesir skin. Thor didn’t know whether the change was intentional or not. He was looking at Thor, and dozens of different emotions flickered on his face.

“I thought about it,” Loki admitted slowly, “but I could never do it.”

“Why not?”

His brother rolled his eyes. “You, Thor. I could never do it because of you. I loved you too dearly to really think about leaving you.” There was a protracted pause before Loki softly added, “For all its wrongs, Asgard is my home. It took me a long time to accept it, but I could never break my connection to it.”

They fell into gentle silence again. It had been centuries since they had talked like this. They used to share each other’s hearts openly, and Thor couldn’t exactly say when that had stopped. They had gotten close to it on the  _ Statesman,  _ but had never crossed the invisible line. 

Feeling brave, Thor asked another question.

“Is that why you choose to remain in your Aesir skin rather than your natural born one?”

Loki startled as if the unexpected inquiry physically struck him. He recovered quickly, eyebrows crinkling in thought.

“Partially,” he admitted at last. “When I look at a Jotunn, my first thought is ‘monster’, and that is not what I want to see every time I look in the mirror. But truthfully, that is only a small part of it.”

Loki paused, searching for the right words. He stared out into the distance with a lost look in his eyes. Thor listened when Loki spoke again. “The much larger part of it is that I feel like this skin, my Aesir skin, is my true form. It is just as I wouldn’t like to take on a Vanir or a Dvergr skin for the rest of my life. Anything else would feel too foreign. The Aesir are who I was raised with and what I was raised in. It is my home more than any other.”

Thor wasn’t sure what to think about the warm feeling that lit in his chest when Loki said the words. On one hand, it heartened him to hear Loki speak so candidly about his connection to their home. On the other hand, he couldn’t help but think Loki was simply accepting it because there was no other place for him to go.

He looked at Loki from the side of his eyes and saw his brother curled in on himself. He was clutching his arms to his chest, unconsciously protecting the place Thor had put his hand through. His eyes were foggy, and he looked hopelessly small.

It reminded Thor of the days on the  _ Statesman _ leading up to their fateful demise, days that Loki floated between the Revenger members, not quite able to ground himself to anyone. It also reminded Thor of even older memories. Memories of Loki trying to desperately keep up with Thor and his friends until one of them inevitably snapped and shoved Loki away for being “too young and clingy”.

Once again, he got the sense that Loki was so much lonelier than Thor could have ever imagined.

How long had Loki carried this with him without Thor seeing it? How many times had he seen Loki looking so outcast and just ignored it?

Thor wanted to reach out, but settled on simply scooting closer to Loki. He tried to get as close as he possibly could without accidentally putting another body part through his brother, but failed. His hip went into his brothers, and he expected Loki to jolt away.

The trickster left it though, even subtly trying to get closer. By now, both their hips and shoulders were occasionally brushing through each other.

“You know,” Thor began slowly, and Loki looked up to him with a questioning tilt of the head. “If you were physically here, I might even give you a hug.”

It took Loki a second to recognise the words, and he gave a snort of a laugh. “You have hugged me twice in two days, brother, how many hugs do you have planned for me?”

“An endless amount, Loki. You will get so used to them that they will become as natural as breathing.”

Because he hadn’t given Loki enough hugs while he was alive. Because now that he had him back, he wasn’t going to ever let go.

Loki moved first, slow and unsure. He didn’t seem to know where to place his hands, and awkwardly settled them in his lap. Thor had to hold himself back from commenting on how adorable Loki looked in the moment, knowing that if he made a comment, Loki would just skitter away. It was like a shy cat had finally decided to rub itself against his leg.

Once he decided on where to put his hands, Loki tried leaning into Thor. His movements didn’t have their usual fluidity, and he kept twitching as if he thought that Thor was going to shove him away if he made the wrong decision (not that he could, being corporeal and all).

Loki leaned, not too much or else he would risk toppling through Thor, but enough so that Thor could recognise it as an attempt at affection. He tilted his head, so that it would have been resting on Thor’s shoulder if he was physically there. Thor could almost painfully imagine Loki’s warmth and the tickle to his hair against his neck.

If he could have, Thor was sure that Loki would be completely curled against Thor, bonelessly giving his brother his weight. Thor wished he could take it and press a kiss against Loki’s temple.

He couldn’t though, not with the veil of life and death still between them. So instead, Thor shifted, putting an arm around Loki and offering silent support.

“I am glad you never left, Loki. I am sorry that I was so ignorant to you, but I am glad you never left.”

It was a strange hug, but it still eased some of the hurt out of the shattered part of Thor.

They couldn’t touch, but it was enough to feel closer to his brother than he had in a long time.

“Thank you, Thor,” Loki said, so softly that Thor almost missed it.

“For what?” he asked, equally as quiet.

Loki was silent, but he didn’t shift his head off Thor’s collarbone.

Finally, he said, “I don’t know.”

Thor didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.

He thought that both of them actually did know.

They stayed like that until Thor’s arm was hopelessly numb, and Loki's side had to be hurting. Loki moved away from Thor first, collapsing on to the blanket that had served as his bed last night. He rolled on to his back and stared up at the ceiling of the cave and the twinkling witchlight that floated above them.

“What happens after this, Thor?” he asked, his voice far away.

“After what?”

Loki snorted and rolled his eyes. “After we kill the monster, and you and your merry band go on their way.”

Thor laid down on his belly next to Loki. The position was familiar and reminded Thor of the hundreds of times Loki had burst into Thor’s room to settle on his bed and think about whatever problem he was working through.

“What do you think is going to happen after this?”

“Well obviously, you’re not going to stay in this cave forever, and I think I might be bound to it because the veil is unnaturally thin here, which means…” Loki’s voice trailed off, and he met Thor’s eyes. He had that deep loneliness written into the lines of his face again.

“Will you promise to come back and visit me, Thor?”

Thor froze, and he swore he could feel a bit of his soul tear. Did Loki truly believe that once this adventure ended, Thor would be so quick to cast him aside? That he would be callous enough to leave Loki trapped and alone in this cold, dark place? That he would be like Father who had been needlessly cruel?

_ But he had done so before, hadn’t he?  _ a dark part of Thor’s mind whispered.

He had left Loki behind, in prisons, in danger, in the clutches of enemies. Hel, he had left his brother on the ground writhing in agony immediately after Loki had begun making efforts to repair their shattered relationship. An incident that had only been made worse when he began to realise what kind of situation Loki had been in on Sakaar. Valkyrie didn’t say much, it wasn’t her story to tell, but apparently there was much more pain in being the “Grandmaster’s Favourite” than Loki had let on.

Thor wasn’t sure if he would ever forgive himself for that betrayal. He had been so blind then and so sure in his own haughty and righteous anger that he didn’t even realise how much damage he was leaving. Loki had often told him he was a rampaging Bilgesnipe, a creature that left destruction in its wake, and never before had the comparison rang so true.

So true that, when faced with a choice, Loki immediately thought that Thor would choose the option that would hurt him the most. Loki didn’t even question whether Thor would leave him, he only begged that Thor wouldn’t make it a true imprisonment. That maybe Thor could deign himself enough to visit Loki in his indefinite isolation.

Thor didn’t know what to say. What  _ could  _ he say?

He thought that he and Loki were getting closer, and it only took a comment like this to prove to Thor how far away Loki thought himself to be.

He tried to find the words, but the shame, and the guil and the fear of pushing Loki even further away crushed anything he might have attempted to say back down his throat. He knew that he couldn’t wait too long to speak because in the silence, Loki’s mind would fill his own head with the worst case scenarios.

It must have been too long though, because Loki started babbling.

“Please, Thor, it does not need to be long visits. Perhaps, once a week? Maybe once a month if that is too much? I promise I do not need too much.” Loki paused, searching his eyes desperately before beginning to talk again. Thor hated how frantic Loki’s voice was becoming. “Please, brother, you do not even need to talk with me when you visit. I understand that I’m not pleasant. I know people usually find me the most tolerable when I’m silent, and I will do my best to make myself palatable. But please, Thor, could you do this favour for me?”

Thor looked at his brother, really truly looked at him, and he didn’t like how vulnerable Loki seemed. He watched his brother try to keep his mask, to swallow his emotions behind a cool exterior, and Thor wondered how it got to this point.

“Loki, I need you to listen to me.”

His brother froze, tensing his muscles as if he expected Thor to hit him. He continued, trying to keep his own guilt out of his voice.

“I will not be leaving you trapped in this cave. If we get to the end of this adventure, and you still cannot escape this place, then we will figure it out. Hel, Loki, If I need to, I will move in here just to be with you. I had thought you were lost to death, and now I’ve been blessed by the Norns to get you back, so if you think that I’m going to let a simple pile of rocks get in the way, then you are vastly mistaken.”

Loki was still frozen, his eyes wide with shock. He shook his head and tried to argue back. “But, Thor, what about your Avenging friends? Would you not wish to remain with them?”

“You two are not exclusive from each other. They can always come to visit, and I am sure that we would be able to make this cavern into a comfortable home.”

Any other arguments died on Loki’s tongue, and he was uncharacteristically speechless.

“Please, Loki, do not think I will abandon you again. It is just as Mother used to say, ‘When the bonds between brothers is strong, dragons or direwolves or draugr cannot keep them apart.’”

Something lit in Loki’s eyes, but it wasn’t the sentimentality that Thor had been hoping to create.

“Wait what did you say?” Loki asked; his mind sounded far away.

“That I will not abandon you?” Thor repeated with a confused tilt of the head.

“No, no, no.” Loki shook his head, and Thor felt a sting at the abrupt dismissal of the statement. His brother snorted when he saw the obvious offense on Thor’s face. “I don’t mean it like that, you great lout. I understand that your sentimentality knows no bounds.”

Loki gave him a small smile filled with a fragile affection. “I only ask that you repeat the second part of what you said.”

Thor hummed, “You mean Mother’s saying? When the bond between brothers is strong, dragons or direwolves or draugr cannot keep them apart.”

Realisation was clicking in Loki’s mind; Thor could practically watch the pieces fall into place in Loki’s head. His brother, his clever, clever, brilliant brother had figured something out.

“Thor, you are a secret genius.” Loki laughed, giddy with his accomplishment. “That’s it. That’s the piece I was missing.”

“I am? It was?” Of course, though, Thor had no idea what he had figured out.

“Yes, it all makes sense now. The miasma. The dance between life and death. The way it manipulates the cave.”

“You mean the monster?”

“Yes,” Loki declared, “and not any monster. The draugr.”

“A draugr? The undead? Brother, those are just stories from children’s books. They are make-believe.”

“Make believe like ghosts? Make believe like gods who can control lightning or reality itself? Brother, you should know as much as me that the fiction is more of a point of view than defined fact.”

Thor had never thought of it like that. He had been dismissed as a myth many times by the Midgardians, and yet he was obviously real. Why then would he assume that Asgard’s myths would be any less susceptible to falsehood?

“So, what does that mean?” Thor asked, bringing a hand to his beard in thought.

“Nothing good. I don’t know much more than you do, and everything I do know is from scraps of stories. Myths almost always bring up their ability to manipulate the veil between life and death, and miasma is common enough in creatures of dark magic, so that could be how it is dipping between the two. Hela used a similar form of seidr when raising her army.”

Thor’s eyebrows lifted. “Could you do that? Manipulate the veils like the draugr and Hela?”

Loki immediately grimaced, his nose scrunching like he had smelled something terrible. “I could, but I never  _ would.  _ Miasma is an abhorrent form of seidr. It is twisted and against everything that seidr should be. Seidr is my connection to Yggdrasil. It’s how I fit within the threads of reality. To turn to miasma would be like rejecting every other part of me, it would sicken my soul.”

Okay, Thor could definitely cross miasma off the list of possible ways to bring Loki fully into life.

“What does the miasma mean for killing the beast? Would we still be able to defeat it?”

Loki shrugged, eyes caught in contemplation. “I do not see why not. A draugr is not actually dead like the stories say. It is a force of death and vile destruction, but it is a living creature just like you.” Loki had to catch himself from instinctively adding  _ and I. _ “It simply has the ability to manipulate around the veils. The hardest part is finding a weapon that can similarly pierce between life and death, and we have found that in Verity.”

Thor pulled the sword forward, giving it an experimental swing in the air. Loki jerked his arm out of its path. “Be careful, Thor,” he hissed, “that is also the only weapon that could injury me.”

“Sorry brother,” Thor said sheepishly. He had always had a bad habit of being careless with his weapons.

They quieted, both thinking about the draugr and the task set out before them. Thor gave a soft chuckle.

“It is almost like one of the adventures from our youth. You and me and a warriors three against a great beast.”

Loki met his eyes with a sliver of a smile. “All we need is you deciding to run headfirst into danger and then it would truly be a journey of old.”

Thor wanted to cuff Loki on the head, but held himself back. “I did not do that that often.”

“Oh, so I’ve imagined all those times I needed to rescue you with my magic? Perhaps next time then I will let you figure it out yourself.”

“You brat,” Thor chuckled, standing up and stretching out his limbs. From the corner of his eye, he caught Loki doing something similar. Things felt lighter between them, lighter than they had in centuries. They were long overdue for communication, and it figures that a life-and-death situation would be what finally pushed them into it.

“Come, brother,” Loki said as he gracefully came to Thor’s side. He had a hint of his old mischief in his eye. “I am sure your Midgardians will be beside themselves with worry, and we have a monster we need to kill.”

Thor smiled, and it felt like baring his teeth. The draugr had wreaked havoc on the small village. It had slaughtered innocents and threatened Thor’s friends. And it would continue to destroy this peaceful country if they did not stop its mindless bloodthirst. He could feel lightning prickling on his skin at the thought of the monster.

But if there was one thing that Thor was good for, it was killing evil foes.

“Yes, brother, indeed we do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading! 
> 
> As you might have noticed the chapter count did end up jumping to 10 chapters. I usually put more in these but it's nearly 3 am and I had an 8-hour exam today so I'm tired. But the chapter is finished yay! 
> 
> You can visit my tumblr at [ SalParadiseLost ](https://salparadiselost.tumblr.com) where I scream about many things, including the new Loki series trailer. Come say hi! I only bite sometimes.
> 
> Please be sure to leave a kudos and comment! Flattery gets you everywhere.


	8. The Trap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha punches a wall. Thor does some big brother teasing. The team is going to bring the monster to them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone!
> 
> Thank you for waiting and I hope you enjoy this chapter!
> 
> As always, big thank you to my beta, Sundial_at_Night who put commas everywhere and has really taught me the difference between an en and em dash.

Chapter 8: The Trap

The gods returned and found the mortals whispering amongst themselves.

As they approached, the humans immediately halted their conversation, whipping their heads in their direction. Natasha was giving Loki a scrutinising look that his brother was trying to ignore. Peter looked like he was physically holding himself back from jumping Loki with a hug. Tony was making an uncharacteristically serious face at the god; that unsettled Thor a little bit.

“Oh hey, looks like Casper is back in the waking world,” Tony said while raising a questioning eyebrow. “You okay?”

“You’re concerned?” Loki shot back, tensing at if he was preparing for an attack.

The billionaire just shrugged. “The nightmares seemed pretty bad. I know how it feels, and I don’t actively wish that on other people.”

Loki blinked, tilting his head slightly in surprise. “Oh, um…” His brother was taken aback. “I am fine, it’s of no consequence.”

“Yeah, but,” Natasha cut in, levelling Loki with a serious gaze, “it’s okay if you need to ask for a couple more minutes. We all have things that chase us.”

“I don’t need more time,” Loki insisted again.

“I’m glad you’re alright, Mr. Loki,” Peter chirped up.

Loki rolled his eyes. “Mortals are so sentimental. I am _fine,_ and, more importantly, I have news.”

He walked around to the front of the group, standing before the seated Midgardians. He put his hands on his hips and looked entirely too proud to know something that they didn’t know.

It was Thor’s turn to roll his eyes. Loki could be so needlessly dramatic. Maybe he would also start declaring himself their saviour.

Natasha gave a scoff that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. “What kind of news?”

Loki preened under the attention. “I figured out what kind of monster we are facing.”

“I thought I was the genius?” Thor said, enjoying the way that Loki glared at him. “You did say that earlier. You said it, and you cannot take that back.”

“You gave me inspiration, but _I_ was the one who put the pieces together.”

“Well, go on, drama queen. Tell us already,” Tony said, though he looked a little amused at the bickering.

The trickster sighed, losing the dramatics. The moment was lost, and he looked a bit put out by having his announcement foiled. “What we are hunting is a draugr.”

Loki lifted a hand, and an illusion of a draugr flickered into his palm. His signature green seidr swirled around his hand.

“The draugr are creatures from Asgardian legend who have the ability to manipulate the veils between life and death. They do it through miasma, a perverted form of seidr that twists the natural life energy of Yggdrasil into something wretched.”

“So that’s a really fancy way to say we are fighting some kind of magical zombie demon.”

Loki shrugged. “You could say that.”

Natasha put a hand to her chin. Her eyebrows furrowed in thought. “What does that mean for the missing people? Has the draugr been hunting them like it has been hunting us?”

The god’s face fell. “The draugr has most likely been hunting them to steal their life and amplify its own power. Given the blood that we’ve seen around the cave and the lack of other signs of life, I wouldn’t say that the outlook is hopeful.”

Natasha’s face twisted before shuttering into a blank, cold glare. She cursed in Russian and walked away from the group with a hiss. There was a crack of her fist hitting the wall.

Thor watched, a similar feeling of guilt welling up in the pit of his stomach. He also wanted to punch a wall, but he didn’t want to break too many rocks. They were too late and too clueless. Norns, the people might have been dead before their rescue team had even gotten to the cave.

He looked to Loki and saw his brother trying desperately to keep his feelings behind a placid frown. But he knew his brother, he knew exactly how heavy that bloody shoe they found at the entrance of the cave weighed in his heart.

“I am sorry,” Loki whispered in a voice almost too quiet to hear.

Thor was just able to keep himself from trying to place a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “It is not your fault, Loki. It is only the fault of the draugr.”

“But I could have figured it out sooner,” Loki snapped, rearing back like a snake about to strike.

Tony scoffed, drawing their attention. His arms were crossed over his chest. “Don’t think so highly of yourself. It’s all of our faults. We were supposed to rescue them, and all we’ve done so far is wander around.”

“Mr. Stark…” Peter seemed like he wanted to argue, but a firm look from Tony held the words back.

The tension in the air was palpable, and it was broken when Natasha walked back to the group. There was blood on her knuckles, and one of her fingers was rapidly purpling. “It is no use fighting or trying to place blame. The most important thing now is killing the monster and saving who we can.”

She met each of their eyes, and there was an intense, determined fire in her gaze.

She rounded on Loki, and he almost imperceptibly straightened his spine. It reminded Thor of the moments when Mother caught Loki in a lie and a single look was enough to begin to make him sweat.

“Loki, tell us what our game plan should be. What are its weaknesses, strengths, and how do we bring it down?”

Loki’s face set into seriousness, and his jaw tensed. The switch was familiar to Thor, who had had his brother at his side through hundreds of battles. He could read his brother’s tactical eyes and the way hundreds of plans flitted through his head in an instant.

“A draugr is a creature that can control the veil between life and death,” he started, conjuring an illusion of a draugr with the flick of his hands. “The hardest part in fighting it is landing a hit because it phases between the realms of the living and that of the dead. When it is in the dead realm, it is as incorporeal as me and unable to be struck with a physical weapon. But when it goes to strike its enemy—”

“It switches back into the living realm so it can hit,” Peter finished for Loki, and the god nodded his head.

“Great. So we got some kind of monster that can touch us but we can’t touch it,” Tony grumbled as he kicked at a rock.

“Not exactly,” Thor interjected, bringing Verity forward. “Verity is a sword forged in Vanir flame and carefully perfected by my brother. He bespelled it so it has the ability to pierce between the veils. It is the weapon he used to fight the monster yesterday.”

Natasha nodded, silently reaching out for the sword. Thor handed it off and watched as she reverently examined the blade. She held it confidently, but respectfully—the pose of someone who knew the power of a weapon in hand. Natasha would have made a wonderful Valkyrie.

“This spell you used,” Natasha directed the question to the trickster, “could you put it on my guns or Tony’s nano tech?”

“Unfortunately, no.” Loki sounded truly regretful about it. “Vanir steel is naturally receptive to magic, and the sword already knew me well, which were the only reasons I could place it to begin with. I probably could figure out a way to adapt the spell to mortal weapons, but it would take me far more time than we have.”

“But it’s possible?” Tony cut it, strangely excited.

Loki shot him a curious eyebrow. “Yes… but I would need to research it and experiment with it extensively.”

“Sure. Cool. We will definitely be revisiting that when we get back up top and I have access to my lab again.

Loki looked a bit lost at the suggestion, but didn’t say anything. A normal person might have believed that the trickster had simply dismissed the comments, but Thor could tell that Loki had stored it away to think about later.

“Right,” Natasha said with a hand to her chin, “so we have a single sword that can for sure hit it. But bullets can work if the monster is in the physical realm.”

Loki nodded, and the Widow hummed.

“What was that thing the monster used to freeze us all? That will be a problem again right?”

“Miasma,” Loki answered, “though now that you’ve felt it and know what it is, you should have a greater resistance to it. Distracting the creature will also help in making sure that it can’t collect enough seidr to release a spell.”

“It’s not the best situation, but all together we could bring it down,” Tony said, though he didn’t look enthusiastic with the plan. “Nat, Peter, and I can be distractions while the god brothers do all the heavy lifting.”

“It’s a loose plan, but it could work,” Natasha mused; her eyebrows crinkled in concentration. Her gaze flicked to the surrounding walls and the tunnel they were in. “We should see if we can find another open cavern. Someplace where we can gain some height to help keep us out of its reach. Then, we can lure it in. It will be good for us to have the element of surprise rather than just letting it track us down.”

Everyone nodded in agreement. The plan was set, even though they still had to figure out many of the details, and the team began to pack up. Loki stood awkwardly off to the side, desperately trying to not look too out of place among the living.

He held himself with his usual grace, but there was definitely still a slight tension in his shoulders and arms, a signal that he didn’t quite know what to do with them. Now that Thor was looking, Loki’s little signs of emotions were so obvious. How had he missed them before? He had often boasted about how well he knew his brother, and yet he had missed so many things.

Thor shook his head and stuffed his blanket in his pack with more force than necessary. Then, there was a crackle sound and he suddenly felt panic as he realised, he might have just crushed his final three pop-tarts.

He was digging through his bag and he almost missed Loki edging towards Natasha, who was standing, already all packed up.

“Lady Natasha,” Loki greeted with a hesitance that was uncharacteristic of him.

The spy tensed almost imperceptibly, and Thor focused on the two though he pretended to keep searching for his pop-tarts. He didn’t think his brother would try to instigate the woman, but he had been surprised by Loki before.

Not to mention, his friends still—understandably—had doubts about his brother because the last they had seen of him was the shadow of himself that tried to take New York. Thor had fought to redeem Loki in their eyes, but it was a hard, uphill battle when Loki was dead and his deeds were final.

A small part of Thor had hoped that this adventure might be a way to change Tony and Natasha’s opinion of him. Maybe not completely, but enough so they would tolerate Loki when (not if, _when_ ) they left this cave.

“Prince Loki,” Natasha said primly, flicking her eyes to him before looking at Tony and Peter, who were bickering over something.

“Lady Natasha, I can’t help but notice,” Loki tried to say, but his words were falling a bit flat. “your hand, could you give it to me?”

Natasha snapped her eyes up to Loki’s, levelling him with a fierce gaze. His brother didn’t back down, meeting with a raised and defiant chin. There was silence between them, and Thor was sure he might have been seconds away from needing to intervene.

But then Natasha silently complied, lifting her injured hand to be more accessible. Loki raised his own hand to meet it, green flickering on his fingers. He reached out only to stop himself, right before he was about to touch Natasha.

Realisation flickered in his eyes, and his face instantly fell.

“I’m sorry. I forgot. This spell needs touch in order to work. I am sorry for bothering you.” Loki looked like he was about to run away, but Natasha stopped him with a question.

“What were you trying to do?” she asked, eyebrows raised.

Loki paused before he answered. “There’s a spell to take away pain and aid the healing process. I noticed your injured hand, and I thought it might help, but I cannot perform it without touching the hurt area. I’m sorry. It was foolish of me.”

The spy was giving him an unreadable stare that only seemed to make Loki want to flee more. But, after a few moments, it slid into something calmer.

“That’s actually kind of sweet of you,” she said with a small smile.

Loki looked instantly taken aback. “I’m not sweet,” he insisted, “I simply don’t want anything to interfere with our plan in killing the draugr.”

“Sure, you don’t, but I still think it was nice,” Natasha countered, her eyes lighting in amusement when it only seemed to frustrate Loki more. “It’s okay. I’ve had a lot worse than some bruised knuckles. I’ll live.”

“Oh, okay,” Loki said, straightening his spine and looking forward. Natasha’s gaze didn’t leave Loki, though, and she was looking at him like he was a puzzle that she was just beginning to put together.

“I won’t lie; getting offered help from the same guy who called me a ‘mewling quim’ last time we really spoke is a bit surprising.”

Loki visibly flinched at the words. His fingers twitched nervously, and he ducked his head out of Natasha’s gaze. “I know it isn’t worth much, but I am sorry about that. I should not have said it.”

“Thor mentioned something about you being mind controlled in New York. Is that true?”

His brother shifted in a single, uncomfortable movement. “In a way, yes. Not in the sense that the Hawk was, but the Titan had turned much of my mind to anger and spite. My actions were my own, but all of them were influenced by the false memories the Titan had placed on me.”

“And the torture too?”

Loki looked like he wanted to be anywhere else. “Let us just say that I was not looking forward to returning if I failed my mission. I am not stupid, though. I knew the destruction the Titan sought, and I endeavoured to make his claiming of Midgard as complicated as possible. I had hoped that I could both lose the battle and escape the worst Titan’s anger; two things I did with middling success. Not that it did much in the end, the Titan found my failure and managed to catch and kill me for giving you the city.”

Natasha startled. “That was how you died? Thanos killed you because of New York?”

“Thanos is not someone who lets betrayal go unpunished. Not many would risk his wrath,” Loki said with a shrug.

“But you did to save your brother?” Natasha asked, and the question made Loki’s face soften a bit.

“Would you do anything different?” Loki asked, his eyes wandering to Tony and Peter. Natasha shook her head. Her serious face melted into something softer. It was a look Thor recognised from the Avengers dinners they had together and the movie nights that inevitably ended up with someone being pranked. It was a smile for when Natasha saw her family.

“No, I would have sacrificed myself in a heartbeat,” Natasha said softly, and it sounded like a promise. Then, she looked back to his brother with a bit of mischief in her eyes.

“You know, Loki, that kinda makes you sound like an Avenger.”

Loki’s nose scrunched as if he smelled something terrible. “As if I would ever join your band of buffoons.”

“A band of buffoons that you’re beginning to resemble with all the self-sacrifice and helpfulness in defeating the monster.”

The trickster scoffed. “Even if I did want to join your troop, I have a feeling that your morals wouldn’t ever allow it.”

“You’d be surprised,” Natasha hummed. “Many of us have dark pasts. Most of us have been called villains before. We would be hypocrites if we didn’t allow reformed individuals on the team. If you were truly evil, then of course we would let you in, but I think there’s hope for you yet.”

Loki’s eyes narrowed into a dangerous gaze. “And what proof do you have of that, Lady Natasha?” he growled.

Natasha didn’t flinch. ”Thor told us about you when he thought you were dead. He told us stories about thousands of years of being your brother. He also told us about your final acts with Ragnarök. They made you sound like quite the hero, maybe not a conventional hero, but a hero all the same.” Loki looked like he was about to protest, but a sharp look from Natasha shut him up. “I’ve seen evil in the hearts of men; I know what that looks like.”

“And do you see that in me?” Loki said, his voice was on the edge between a plea and a challenge. Like he wasn’t sure which of those options he wanted it to be.

Natasha’s face remained blank, but her mouth lost some of its tension. “No, Loki. I don’t.”

Then she casually nodded towards Peter. “Anyways, Peter trusts you already, and the kid has great instincts. There’s no way in hell he would have made friends. Plus, you haven’t been doing a great job at pretending you don’t care.”

Loki didn’t answer back, and they both fell into silence.

Thor finished packing his things, pretending he hadn’t heard the conversation at all, and wandered to the two of them.

“All packed up?” Natasha questioned playfully, as if she just hadn’t been digging up all of his brother’s hidden emotions.

“Yes,” Thor said, looking between the two. “Are you two ready?”

“Of course,” Loki tsked, stepping away with a vain huff. He wandered off, pretending to be completely unbothered when Thor was sure that he was trying to come to grips with what Nat had said.

Thor’s eyes slid back to Natasha, and she flashed him a knowing smile that told Thor she knew exactly what she had said.

She really was the smartest one out of all of them.

They finished up their packing and began to walk through the cave tunnel. Natasha, Tony and Thor were all shining their flashlights across the rocks, and the lights made the water on the stone glimmer. Peter had somehow convinced Loki to give him a witchlight and the boy was bouncing around with the ball of light between his palms.

Every once in a while, Thor caught him whispering to the golden light as if it were a small dog. Peter had apparently named it Pikachu and, occasionally, he would toss it forward while whispering “Pikachu, I choose you,” only to grin with the wisp floated back to his hand.

Thor had no idea what game this was, but the boy seemed to be enjoying it immensely.

They wandered around the cave for a couple hours until they finally reached a cavern. This one was smaller than the ones that they had seen before, and there was a constant drip in the back of it. The walls were littered with the runes, but there thankfully wasn’t any blood.

Loki immediately went to the scawlings, beginning to look over them while he muttered to himself. He traced them with a finger, and his face twisted in distaste.

He apparently wasn’t more successful with these runes than any of the other ones.

Thor came to his side, briefly wondering how Loki could make even a little sense of the mess of lines and curves.

“No luck, brother?”

“Clearly not,” Loki spat. “I can’t even tell if this has anything to do with the draugr. All this stuff is about some kind of trade agreement” he motioned to a grouping off to the side, “and this stuff is about some kind of records? Maybe? I am not quite sure. I think we may have just stumbled on their taxes,” Loki said blandly and like even he wasn’t convinced with the theory.

He glared at the runes again, as if he could level them into understandability with a mean enough look, before turning away with a huff. Thor chuckled as they both returned to the mortals.

“Woah, what did those runes do to you, Tall, Dark and Angry?” Tony said when he caught the murderous expression on Loki’s face. He edged a bit away from the frustrated god.

“They failed to be useful, unless you could consider the ramblings on exchange rates particularly helpful information,” he growled, the sound dangerous. Thor knew that this was all bark and no bite, but Tony wasn’t exactly aware of that.

He cautiously stood his ground, though it was strange to see the billionaire at a loss of words. “Oh well, maybe next time?”

Loki sighed, forcing some of the tension out of his muscles. “Hopefully, if we kill the beast there won’t be a next time. We can finish our business here, leave this Norns-forsaken place and I won’t have to look at another rune again.”

Tony was quiet, but there was something like hope in his eyes. “We are close aren’t we? Close to getting out of here?”

“If we don’t die within the next couple hours.”

Tony scoffed at him. “Way to be pessimistic, Horns. Anyways, why do you gotta worry about that? You’re already dead and it seems to be turning out pretty good for you.”

Loki hummed and didn’t look at Tony when he answered. “Believe it or not, being dead doesn’t actually mean that I wish everyone around me to also be dead. Also, I’m not quite sure I could tolerate having to put up with your blabbering for the rest of eternity if you did join me on this side of the veil.”

The billionaire really looked at the god who was idly picking at his own fingernails. He was giving Loki that uncharacteristically serious expression again.

Thor had to suppress a chuckle. If Tony and his brother ever stopped squabbling, they might finally figure out how similar they were. Maybe if they got out of this alive, they finally would realise how great friends they could be.

A thought that both excited Thor and made him fear the power of Tony and Loki combined.

The thunder god shook his head good-naturedly and wandered back over to his brother’s side. It was a comfortable familiar spot, though Thor never used to be so attached to his brother’s hip. Having his sibling die a couple times seemed to have changed that, especially with the nagging fear that if he let Loki wander too far away, he might find him gone for good.

His mind flashed back to that image he had imagined before—the one with Loki on the edge of a cliff, caught somewhere between safety and plummet.

It was an imagination, but it was one that disturbed Thor more than he would like to admit. He wasn’t sure he could survive Loki being ripped from him again.

Suddenly, there was a yelp, and Thor jerked around to see Loki glaring at Tony like he was seconds away from murdering him.

Tony looked like he was trying (and failing) to not burst out laughing.

“Try that again, mortal, and I will eviscerate you very slowly,” Loki growled in a way that would make most mortals cower.

Thor knew Tony, though. He knew how precocious he could be and that he often didn’t respond well to threats. They only served to motivate him more more often than not.

“And how will you do that, ghostboy? Will you swipe your hand through me until you mist me to death?”

Loki’s eyes flared in anger and seidr flickered on his fingertips. “I will—”

Thor’s furious brother cut off when a rock flew through his face, clattering against the wall behind him.

“Oops,” Tony said, in absolutely no way apologetic, “I did it again.”

Loki muttered a curse in native Asgardian that made Thor want to burst out laughing from his brother’s ‘inventiveness’ and gasp in shock at why he would even think that. Loki’s speech was always… creative. His cursing was even more so when he chose to indulge in it.

“What did he say?” Tony snapped, not angry, just intensely curious. “What did Ghostie say?”

The god chuckled and crossed his arms over his chest. The billionaire was looking up at him expectantly, like a dog awaiting a bone. “I do not believe I should repeat it.”

“You definitely should. You can’t hold the good stuff away from me, Point Break. Avengers-to-Avenger privileges and all that.”

Thor raised an eyebrow. “I do not believe our team privilege extends to my brother’s insults to both you, your ancestors, and an unconventional use of a mop.”

“What did he say about the mop?” Tony looked frantically between Thor and Loki. Thor was giving him a small smile that he knew was only going to annoy him more. Loki was smirking and idly shifting his weight. “You have to tell me how he’s going to use the mop.”

“Alas, Man of Iron,” Thor’s smile slid more into a smirk. His brother must be proud of him in this moment. “Some things are to remain between brothers.”

“But, but, brothers-in-arms,” Tony tried.

The thunder god shook his head cryptically and turned to his brother. He spoke in Asgardian to him. “ _The weather is quite lovely, right now, isn’t it?”_ He flicked his eyes to Tony as if he was trying to make a judgment on something.

Loki caught on immediately, also looking towards Tony as if he was accessing him. _“Exceedingly fine,”_ he answered mildly. Tony seemed like he was about to burst. _“I look forward to seeing the snow when we get out of the cave. You remember how much I love the snow.”_

“No, no, no,” Tony insisted. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare use your old-as-dirt fantasy language against me.”

Thor hummed, tilting his head in faux consideration. “ _I do remember. I also remember how much you loved warming by the fireplace after you dragged me half-across Vanaheim on one of your winter expeditions. You always did take great joy in seeing me nearly freeze my toes off as you barely shivered.”_ Thor kept his eyes on Tony, but thought he saw Loki smother a smile out of the corner of his eyes. _“Remind me, brother, to introduce you to this Midgardian hot drink called coffee when we are released. It is wonderful for warming up after being in the snow and I believe you will enjoy it immensely.”_

Loki met Thor’s eyes, turning his shoulder to a reddening Tony. He lifted a graceful eyebrow, and pretended Tony wasn’t even there. “ _Of course. I look forward to trying this drink.”_

Thor shifted, mirroring Loki. _“I must warn you also. The humans treat it as a sort of elixir. I’m not sure if it actually has magical properties or not.”_

“Fine. You know what. This—” Tony waved a finger between both the conspiring gods, “—this is terrible. You two are both assholes and horrible influences on each other. Go back to being enemies because I don’t think I can handle you two being partners.”

Loki made a dramatic jerk, definitely playing it up. “Oh, forgive us, Stark. We had forgotten that you were there. It’s quite easy considering how diminutive you are.”

The billionaire gave Loki a long, angry look that only served to highlight their significant height difference. Loki’s smirk grew playfully vicious.

Tony looked like he was about to burst. “This is the last time I work with literal friggin’ gods because next time I’m gonna—” Before Tony could undoubtedly give them a (probably harmless) threat, Natasha’s voice cut through the conversation.

“Boys.” She sounded caught between exasperation and a laugh. She seemed to be trying to keep a stony face, but allowed a small sliver of a smile to slip through. The allowance of the cracks within her façade said a lot about how much she trusted them. “Are you all done bickering or are you going to continue to act like children?”

Thor froze at the tone, which was so similar to his mother’s, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw his brother do the same. But Loki had always been quicker to recover.

“Of course, Lady Natasha,” Loki said smoothly, purposefully emphasising the warm roll of his accent. “These oafs always seem to be caught in their infantile behaviour.”

Next to Thor, Tony ground out a string of curse words that his brother pointedly ignored.

Natasha’s ghost of a laugh tugged into a full smile. “And that would never be you, Prince Loki?”

Loki grinned with the same charm that had gotten him out of heaps and heaps of trouble as a child. It had only become more irresistible and entrancingly deadly as he got older.

“I would never lower myself to those minuscule standards,” he purred.

Thor couldn’t hold back a laugh at that one. The sound was full-bellied and rang through the room. “Be careful what you believe. You’ve never seen him drunk and caught in the throes of flyting. Alcohol seems to dull most men’s tongues, but it only serves to quicken my brother’s.”

“What’s flyting?” Tony piped up. Loki looked close to killing Thor, but the god barrelled on, eager to share.

“Flyting is combative banter between two opponents in which they try to use wit to cut each other down. It’s sometimes done with rhyme, and always done with creative insults that our mother certainly did not approve of. Loki was the best at it; no one could beat him.” Thor unconsciously puffed his chest with pride. “He loved the practice so much that it became a staple of his Royal Test in an event called the Lokasenna.”

The mortals all looked at him with confusion, and Thor furrowed his eyebrows as he tried to figure out what he had said that was puzzling. Eventually, Loki sighed and swooped in to save him.

“The Royal Test was a bi-annual event held in Asgard, in which a member of the royal family set out a week’s worth of challenges that warriors could compete in to gain great honour and the chance to become part of our special tactical forces. Every year, a different member of the family gained control of the cycle and determined the nature of the test. The tests were set out by each member, so they typically focus on whatever that testmaker found valuable in a warrior. Thor’s almost solely focused on the warrior’s battle ability, whereas I challenged the opponent’s cunning.”

Thor rolled his eyes dramatically with a snort. “I think you just liked being able to insult people and not have Mother be able to stop you.”

“There was some of that too, but you can’t say that it wasn’t effective.”

The god couldn’t argue with that though. Loki’s test had been scarily accurate in identifying the warriors destined to become their greatest tacticians and strategists. They were rarely the best in terms of fighting, but Loki’s honoured warriors far exceeded other’s when it came to matters of the mind.

It took Thor a while to realise the value in those warriors, but through Loki’s efforts, he learned that not all deadliness was due to sword or strength. In time, Loki’s Royal Test became Thor’s favourite part of the Test cycle.

Loki never failed to come up with the most creative of trials that often entertained as much as they challenged. Watching them were raucous affairs that never failed to have Thor bent over laughing or utterly rapt. 

Plus, the Lokasenna, which Loki typically held at the tail-end of his test week, was just plain fun.

Thor thought back to those evenings and remembered them as some of the happiest moments in his life. The nights had been dappled in golden light, fine food, rich wine, and full-bellied laughing as opponents tried to insult each other for victory. Merriment rang through the halls of the palace, and happiness seemed to glisten on the walls.

It was one of the only times he had seen Loki with an unguarded smile, looking truly relaxed in his place within the palace. Like he was born into it. Like he belonged there.

It ripped at some delicate piece within him to realise that Loki’s security had been so rare, even in the happiest of times. His brother had constantly been on the outskirts of Asgardian society, and the Lokasenna only proved that. It meant to ground Loki’s place within the dynasty, but it also highlighted how different Loki was from them.

All other events, even their Mother’s, valued strength and stubbornness gilded as a “warrior’s heart”. Loki was the only one to completely ignore the usual trappings of war, and instead seek intellectual skill.

The warriors made fun of Loki for that. Thor was ashamed to admit that he had easily joined them.

Now that he was older, Thor could see what Loki had been aiming to do, but in his youth he only saw the difference.

So, he joined the laughing, even though he was forced to mock the work of someone he so loved and admired.

He wished he had been strong enough to say no and defend his brother. He wished he could have been more vocal about his admiration for Loki's Test cycle. But he had ruined it, like he ruined most things, and it became just another sign of how deeply Thor’s failure as a brother ran.

Thor cast his eyes to the ground, unwilling to look at Loki and see his own failure reflected back at him. Instead, he focused on Natasha and ignored the way that it felt like a defeat.

The Widow was chuckling, obviously imagining what Asgard was like back then. “I will keep that in mind.” She caught Loki’s gaze with a bit of mischief. “What’s the chances I get to see you drunk and flyting?”

Loki’s face became as hard as ice. “Impossible.”

Thor felt a bit of his previous mirth come back and risked a wink to the mortals behind Loki’s back. Despite all of Loki’s denial, he _couldn’t_ resist an opportunity of flyting. And where there was flyting, there was often alcohol.

Many of Thor’s favourite memories had been during those evenings, and he hoped that more of those memories could still be made.

Natasha flashed Thor another of her rare smiles before motioning all of them over to where she was seated. She was on the floor with a piece of paper out before her where she appeared to be sketching out a plan. Peter was sitting next to her, grinning at them. He looked like he was physically holding himself back from bursting out in laughter.

The fact that he could still make Peter laugh, even in these harsh times, brought a smile to Thor’s face. The boy was quite charming, and he could easily see how he managed to steal Tony’s heart so quickly.

“Now,” Natasha said with a cunning smile, “let’s plan to kill this thing.”

\-----

After much discussion, the plan ended up being quite simple. The god brothers were tasked with most of the heavy lifting, aiming to coordinate their attacks across the life-and-death veil. Peter would distract the draugr, taunting it and drawing its attention away from the others, so it could never truly focus its attacks. The constant distraction would also prove helpful in making sure that the draugr couldn’t draw enough power to access its miasma. Natasha and Tony would also help provide firepower by trying to hit the monster when it phased into the living.

“One of the hardest parts of this plan,” Natasha said as she stroked her chin, “is that we never really know what side of the veil the monster is in at any given time. Most of our shots will be guesses.”

Thor hummed with contemplation. “It must pass into the living to attack, perhaps we can centre our attacks around its own?”

“We can bait it into an attack and then lay down heavy fire as it goes for the kill,” Tony added.

There was a silence as all of them thought. Or, at least, Thor assumed that was what they were doing. He couldn’t help but think that they might also be stalling in actually initiating the plan.

“I don’t like it,” Natasha ground out, his lips grimacing. “I don’t like any plan that depends on getting it to purposefully attack us.”

Loki scowled, probably in agreement. “But what other choice do we have?”

“You’re right. We don’t have another choice.” The woman sighed and rubbed at her bruised knuckles. The fingers had been rapidly purpling as time passed, but she didn’t seem to pay it much attention. “We just need to get on with it.”

She stood, and they all followed. They met each other’s eyes, and Thor saw the steel reflected in them. They had all been to battle before. They knew what it meant.

They knew what they risked.

Silently, they all moved into position. Natasha, Tony and Peter headed for a ledge in the rock wall they had found earlier. It was tight, but it would provide them elevation and hopefully enough cover to keep them out of the draugr’s reach.

The brothers stayed on the ground, preparing themselves as the mortals took their place. Natasha gave them a sign, and Loki stepped forward, his seidr swirling in his palms, lighting the cavern with his signature green glow. It gathered in his hand, and then split into three separate manufactured will-o-wisps. They were going to be their lures, bringing the draugr to them.

Thor couldn’t help but feel a small bit of comfort as he saw the wisps. They were pure seidr, a part of Asgard that hadn’t died, and seeing them illuminated in Loki’s hand reminded him that his home lived on. It was just as his Father had said; Asgard wasn’t a place, it was a people and Loki carried on its traditions, just as much as Thor himself did. Loki might have been different, but that didn’t make him any less his brother or any less Asgardian in the best ways.

Loki approached the entrance to the tunnel with slow steps, gathering his seidr around him. The brightness of the magic made the wisps look like small, orbiting suns. With a flick of his wrist, he commanded them down into the dark, and the light illuminated behind him.

For a moment, Loki stood at the mouth of the cave, a lone figure silhouetted by the green magic and the glow of power it brought. Seidr was scarily powerful in skilled hands, and Loki was arguably the most skilled. He could be dangerous. Much more dangerous than the draugr or even Thor himself.

And at that moment, with the threads of the universe held between his fingertips, Thor could really _see_ it.

But as quickly as the moment came, it passed, and Loki was back to being his bratty, little brother.

“Now we have to wait for Norns know how long,” Loki griped, kicking at a small rock in frustration. He practically stomped over to Thor before settling next to where Thor was crouched. Thor knew him well enough to read his impatience as a sign of his nervousness.

He must have been staring at Loki for too long, because his brother shot him an icy glare.

“What,” he growled out, with a small flash of teeth. His brother was on edge and willing to pick a fight wherever there might be one. 

Thor didn’t rise to the bait and held his hands up innocently. “Nothing.”

Loki’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “You know as well as I that it is never ‘nothing’.”

“It is nothing. I swear.”

His little brother didn’t look convinced, but gave up on the line of questioning. He sat on the ground, putting his hands behind him and leaning his weight back. It was a relaxed position, but the tension in his muscles was clear.

Thor couldn’t blame him. He wasn’t looking forward to this fight either. When he was younger, he could have never imagined a time when he wasn’t ready to draw blood and wet his weapon with it. But now, older and wiser, he realised all the prices that must be paid to war and the ugliness it brought out in men.

He hoped that in a not-too-distant future, he may be able to put away his weapons for good and focus on the more peaceful aspects of being a king.

Thor risked a glance at his anxious brother. Maybe Loki would be able to join him this time, maybe Loki would be able to stay this time.

He turned forward again, imagining times when things were peaceful and Loki’s presence was certain and not a fragile hope.

Maybe the Norns would bless him again, and Loki would stay.

Maybe… maybe.

His head was caught up in maybes as he and his brother waited for the draugr to arrive.

\-----

The monster came quicker than he would have liked it to. Though he wasn’t sure he ever would have been prepared for it.

It announced itself with a low hiss that sent a shiver up his spine and lodged itself in his skull. The ice of fear congealed in his veins as the sense of _wrong_ drifted into the cavern like a poisonous smoke.

It was coming as sure as death.

Thor looked to the ghost on his left, trying to ignore the realisation that he was quite surrounded by nearly dead things. How much he hoped that he wouldn’t join them. “Ready, brother?”

Loki snorted, looking out into the yawning dark of the cave, shifting his weight easily between his feet. He leaned back on his heels with the easy, deliberate grace he gave every action. Any other person would have probably read him as perfectly relaxed, but Thor could read the small signs of tension in his body.

“Do you not feel that this is getting repetitive? We have faced this monster once already; a second time should be easier.”

Thor didn’t comment on how much hinged on ‘should’. Loki knew, as much as Thor, how much was left unsaid between the words.

“Really Loki, how are you?”

The trickster rebalanced his weight and, in the motion, lost some of his characteristic ease. He finally met Thor’s eyes, and he hated how much trepidation he could see in his brother’s gaze.

“Isn’t that a question,” Loki said with false levity, “But it doesn’t really matter does it? I am dead already, whether or not this turns out well doesn’t have any consequences for me.”

Thor saw the flash of Loki standing on the edge again, a soul caught somewhere between certainty and doom.

“Loki.” Thor’s voice was hard and almost a shout. The scrapings of the draugr were getting closer. “That’s false. You do matter. What happens to you also matters. I can hardly think of anything more important.”

His little brother gave him a long, unreadable look, and Thor thought for a second that Loki would outright dismiss him. Loki didn’t say anything, though, and only turned back to the approaching threat.

“Now isn’t the time,” he said, already turning his thoughts to the battle at hand. The shift was sudden and instinctual for both of them, the change from a prince into a warrior. “We aren’t the only ones here, and we have bigger problems at hand.”

Thor knew he should follow his brother and get his head into the coming battle, but he couldn’t. Not yet.

Loki was more important than any draugr. His life (and his afterlife) was the _most_ important thing to Thor right now. He wanted to argue, to convince his brilliant, stupid little brother of that fact, but unfortunately, Loki was right.

Thor looked back to the huddled mortals. The brothers weren’t the only lives threatened by the monster.

He sighed and gave up the argument and instead forced himself to tighten his grip on Verity. The sword felt incredibly heavier in his hand, almost as if she knew the terrible work she would have to do.

He couldn’t help but feel like he had already lost the war before the battle began.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!!
> 
> I'm sorry for the wait! I typically stay one chapter ahead of my readers so this was the chapter that got delayed by my exams and then the holidays. But it's here and I hope you liked reading it! We are getting closer and closer to the end, can you believe it! 
> 
> As for the next chapter, it's coming very soon. I've pretty much finished this story, and I'm just debating with myself about a couple of the ending scenes. I'm hoping to finish writing the whole thing this weekend, which means I think it might be done by the end of the month?? 
> 
> That's my update for now, cheers lovelies!
> 
> Please leave a kudos and comment if you liked it! Flattery gets you everywhere!


	9. The Revenant Returned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ghost observes exchange rates.

Chapter 9: The Revenant Returned

The draugr came into the cavern like a noxious fog settling heavy into the night. It wasn’t silent, not with its haunting screeches and the scraping of its claws on the cave walls. It was the gait of a confident predator, big enough and terrifying enough that it knew it didn’t need to mask its movements.

“I don’t like this,” Thor said, just listening as it approached. The sounds would haunt his nightmares for months after this.

Loki snorted and shifted slightly closer to Thor’s side. He would have appeared calm if not for the tight tension between the coil of his shoulders. “I would be concerned if you did.”

He could hardly believe his other had the strength for sarcasm right now. Then again, if Loki wasn’t being sarcastic, then he probably wasn’t being Loki.

Thor shook his head, kicking at a rock. “We’re just standing here. We are hardly even hiding.”

Loki gave Thor a flat look, and the draugr screeched in the background. The sound shook Thor’s bones, and it still never failed to send a shiver down his spine. “Do not worry. The fight will be coming soon, and then there won’t be any standing.”

Thor opened his mouth to speak, but froze when a new sound came from the tunnel they were facing.

Slowly, an artificial voice began to filter in, and Thor recognised it as his own. The wisp, he realised with a start, and listened to his own voice being bounced back to him. It was eerie to hear one’s self coming out of the darkness, and he felt goosebumps rise on his arms. The created voice was yelling in anger and pain with the sound of Mjolnir crashing against another weapon. There was a shout from the distance, and Thor realised that the voice was actually a replay from a battle many centuries ago when he and Loki were both barely of age. 

Thor didn’t know why Loki would have chosen that one out of anything. It had been a successful battle, but nothing of too much import. Actually, now that he thought about it, he hadn’t even remembered Loki was there. But he must have if he had the memory to make the wisp…

Had he really forgotten that Loki had been there at all?

Thor couldn’t help the small, involuntary shiver. He didn’t like the way the replay felt like omen whether it was for the pain in his voice or Loki being forgotten.

His thoughts were broken up by a crack, the sliding of bone against dirt, and Thor knew that the draugr would appear soon.

His grip tightened on Verity, the weight of the sword a comfort in his hand. Beside him, Loki tensed, seidr beginning to spark around his hands.

The draugr in the tunnel paused. There were long beats of silence where their breaths were the only sound. It was a thin and poisonous illusion of peace

The quiet was broken when it roared and began to crash down the tunnel towards them.

Thor still didn’t know if he was ready, but he guessed he didn’t have a choice now.

The draugr burst from the dark with a roar and a snap of its teeth. Its disjointed, elongated limbs scrabbled at the rock, and clawed its too-long body forward. Fangs gnashed, and the fire made eerie shadows dance around it.

“Showtime!” Tony whooped from his high position, and he began to shoot to provide distraction.

The draugr swung around and screeched hauntingly before making its jerky crawl towards the mortals. Thor heart stuttered in his chest as he watched the monster turn to the humans, but the change in direction gave him the opening he needed.

Thor lunged forward, brandishing the sword and bringing it up. He wanted to aim for the spine, but knew that it would be a slim chance. But he had to at least try.

He raised the sword, and brought it down, slicing into the creature’s side. He couldn’t hit the spine at this angle, but hopefully a blow to the side would at least slow it down. The monster’s body rattled in pain, and he could feel the ghastly warmth of its body next to him. It whipped around to knock Thor off of it, but the god leapt out of the way before it could.

Loki darted next to him, circling around the monster. The light from his palms burst in the darkness, and the shine and the movement caught the monster’s eyes. It rapidly lurched, suddenly descending on Thor’s brother with startling accuracy. Loki didn’t even have time to move.

There was a raised clawed hand, and Thor’s breath caught in his throat when it came crashing down on top of Loki.

Only to go right through him.

Loki blinked, just as surprised as anyone to see that it hadn’t done any damage. Then a smirk crawled up his face.

“Natasha!” he barked, “shoot me!”

Thor heard the mortal laugh. “I thought you’d never ask.”

There was a series of expertly aimed shots that passed harmlessly through Loki and into the draugr’s flesh. The monster roared in pain, jolting away from Loki and curling the limb in towards its body.

The bullets began to pass through it, signalling that it shifted between the veils and it was vulnerable to Loki’s attacks. And attack he did. He mercilessly stalked forward, aiming for weak points on the monster’s body and getting in damage with seidr while he could.

“Peter!” Loki shouted, his voice ringing through the cavern. The boy who had been stuck to the wall watching the battle, perked in attention. “Distract it towards the right. I want it in that corner.”

The boy gave a happy shout and shot a web to grapple with. “Yessir, Mr. Loki!”

Together, Loki and the mortals began to corral the monster towards the cave wall.

It only took Thor a few seconds to follow the path that Loki was making and realise the opening he was setting up. Loki and Natasha had slowly been pushing the draugr towards a cave wall—a cave wall that Thor could use to get a clean slash at the monster’s throat. He smiled. His clever, clever brother.

Thor sprinted into position, waiting for his companions to get the monster into position. He was tense, his muscles were ready, and when the opening came, he sprung forward, bringing Verity down in a deadly arc.

He slammed into the creature, feeling their bodies colliding and the sword plunging through the vulnerable flesh. The draugr screeched, and the sound was muddled with blood. It writhed in pain, throwing Thor off its body and making him slam to the ground. It clawed at its own neck, trying to pull out the sword, but it was becoming clear that Thor’s blow had been a killing one.

Within a few tortuous seconds, the draugr began to slow. Its movements lost coordination and then, with a shudder, it fell to the ground.

Dead. The creature was dead.

The draugr finally stilled, and Thor felt something in him release. The draugr stopped breathing, and Thor could draw a long-held breath. The draugr was dead, and Thor felt unshackled from the sense of  _ wrong  _ that had been binding him.

It wasn’t quite the joy he had felt when he had slayed monsters in his youth. No, this emotion was subtler than that, silently slipping its way into the workings of his heart. It was more sombre too, carrying with it the weight of the dead.

Perhaps though, Thor would call it something like relief.

He sighed, and the sound was full of the emotion.

Whatever it was, it felt better than the simmering desperation that this cave had so frequently fuelled.

He looked to his companions and saw something similar reflected on their faces.

Tony was panting, sweat dripping on his brow. He helped balance an exhausted Peter, who seemed to barely be keeping himself upright. Thor was just about to walk over to help, but then Tony’s eyes snapped up to meet his with a hard look. “Is it over?”

One question, but it belied many. After all, they were still in the cave. His brother was still a ghost. They were still hopelessly lost. The innocent dead, the owner of the small shoe, were all still dead.

And Thor had learned through many battles that there was always a price to death. It was always a life given in blood, but many times it was also more, a lasting debt that stayed with the killer. It was the men and women lost to get to that point.

The death of the draugr had a yawning price, one that had included the lives of innocents and one that Thor hoped he had given in full. He hoped there wasn’t more, that his companions weren’t among the debt that the Norns sought for him to pay.

He sighed feeling as ancient as the mortals thought him to be. Living these days often felt like an immovable weight on his back.

He looked towards his brother, but only found Loki staring off into the distance.

Did Loki, even while dead, feel that same weight?

“Is it over?” Tony repeated, his tone unraveling with a frantic edge.

“Let us pray so,” Thor said, his voice low. He kicked the cooling corpse of the draugr, silently relieved when it thumped just like any other dead body. “It certainly lies like the dead.”

Thor didn’t miss the way that Peter’s eyes flickered to Loki, the obvious contradiction. He didn’t voice his thoughts and only huddled closer to his mentor.

Tony glared at the corpse as if a hard enough look could kill it over again. There was a silence, before he visibly forced himself to turn away and back to the cave system.

“Good,” Tony’s voice was steel and empty. “Now let’s get out of here.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Natasha added, already beginning to evaluate their choices of tunnels.

Even though the monster had been defeated, it didn’t mean they were out of danger yet. They were undoubtedly deep in the cave, and almost any move they took risked them going even deeper. Their supplies wouldn’t last forever and getting stuck in the caves could spell their doom just as sure as the draugr did.

What they needed was a sign, something to tell them which direction to go.

“Loki,” Natasha’s voice startled both of the Norse gods. Her voice had an edge of worry. “Is something the matter?”

Thor whipped around. He hadn’t even been paying attention to his brother. He didn’t even realise something was amiss.

And, sure enough, when he caught Loki, he could easily read the anxious lines on his brother’s face, the tiny twitch in his fingers and the uneasy tension in his form.

He also had not taken his eyes off of the looming darkness.

“This is wrong,” Loki whispered, his voice as thin as glass.

It was a tone Thor had heard before, and it rang as loudly as a knell in his ear. There was a warning in that tone. But even more worryingly, Loki’s fear, a rare and piercing thing, ran darkly under the sound.

The last time he had heard it, the Titan came shortly after.

Thor swung around, instantly coming to Loki’s side and drawing Verity. The sword cast a vicious, jagged glint on the cave walls.

“What is it, brother?”

Loki’s breath was hitching in his chest now. His eyes looked like they were flickering between different points in the rocks, but Thor knew they had to be tracing an invisible seidr.

“It’s wrong. It’s wrong,” Loki repeated dread growing in his voice. His magic was growing around him, an automatic response to a threat, but it was directionless without a target. The lights in the cave flickered momentarily plunging the cave into darkness.

“This should be reversed. This should be reversed, but it’s almost like…” his voice trailed off as realisation lit in his eyes.

“The veil is unnaturally thin here and that allows for crossing over.”

That was all the warning they got before the draugr came roaring back into life. The entire world twisted as the peace shattered and became a flurry of sound and violence. The monster Thor didn’t have time to react before claws were at his throat and pushing him down.

His head slammed into the rock and blood rang in his ear. The world became hazy around him, and he knew that this wasn’t good.

“Thor!” he heard his brother’s shout and tried to move towards it, but his body wouldn’t listen. His legs were weak, unable to hold his weight, and he couldn’t do more than struggle into standing.

The draugr screeched in renewed fury, turning on the mortals that had helped bring it down. It whipped around, faster than a monster of that size should be able to and its hooked claws slammed into Tony.

The man yelped as he was forced on to the ground. The suit provided protection, but there was a sickening crunch, and Thor watched in horror as the claws began to pierce through the metal.

Tony struggled, shooting the hideous paw that was pinning him down, but he was unable to fully dislodge it. Natasha shouted and shot heavy gunfire into the creature’s right side.

It didn’t do much damage, but it was enough to draw the creature’s attention and give Tony the chance to slip out of the creature’s grasp. Peter leapt forward and pulled Tony to safety, next to Thor.

“It’s okay, Mr. Stark, it’s going to be okay,” Peter repeated frantically, obviously barely keeping it together. Blood dribbled out the holes in the Iron Man suit and stained the rock below them.

Tony hissed, calling the suit away so he could put pressure on the bleeding wound. “I think the zombie broke it,” he growled through the pain. “Sorry guys,” he did genuinely sound sorry about it, “I don’t think I’m going to be dancing again.”

Thor looked to the battle raging beyond him. Loki and Natasha were darting around the creature, keeping its attention away from the injured. But Thor could see that they were flagging. Natasha must have taken a hit, because there was blood dribbling down half her face, and her movements were jerkier than they were before. Loki wasn’t bloody, but his breaths were heavy, and his seidr wasn’t glowing as brightly in his hands.

“I need to help,” Peter said, his eyes serious and narrow on his fighting companions.

Tony instantly began to protest. “No, kid, it’s too dangerous. Stay back.” There was command in his voice, but there was also defiance in Peter’s eyes.

Thor stood, his world finally stilling instead of swirling around him. “The Man of Iron is right. It’s too dangerous, Spiderling.”

Peter’s jaw set in a hard line, and beyond them, Natasha gave a grunt of pain. The creature snarled, and its claws clashed on a cave wall. “People need my help,” he said slowly and Thor knew there was no changing his mind, “and I’m going to help them.”

Thor tried to catch him, but Peter sprung forward, rushing headfirst into danger. Tony grabbed at the air where the boy was with a growl of frustration.

“No, no, no,” he begged. “Peter, come here!”

The boy didn’t listen, of course, and only entered the fray by launching himself on the draugr’s back. The monster roared in fury, swiping at the boy with deadly claws. Peter held tight, clinging to the monster and distracting it away from preying on Natasha.

But Peter wasn’t quite out of arm’s reach. It hadn’t gotten him yet, but Thor could see that it was only a matter of time.

Thor took the opportunity, running forward with Verity to take advantage of the distraction Peter was providing. He slashed at its hindlegs, hoping to draw its attention away from the boy. The draugr shifted, trying to kick out, but it wasn’t enough to distract it away from Peter.

Thor saw the attack in a horrifying second before the draugr landed it. Its arm reached around at the perfect angle, and it caught Peter around the chest.

The boy slammed to the ground, like a bird shot out of the sky. He lay in a crumpled heap, all limbs trailing with sickeningly vibrant blood.

The world seemed to come to a sudden halt, and a blaring ring echoed in his ear. Thor thinks he might have yelled, but even his own voice was drowned out by the incessant ringing.

The draugr leered over the boy’s vulnerable body, ready to rain down another blow. Peter twitched, proving he was still alive and tried desperately to drag himself out of the battlefield. But he would be too slow. There wasn’t even a chance.

The world swam around him and guilt crushed in at all sides. He was the one who dragged a boy into a battle, and now he was going to watch that boy die. He tried to move. He desperately wanted to move, but something pinned him to the floor. He never used to be a coward. He never used to be a failure. He used to be someone that was able to protect others, so why couldn’t he force his damned feet to  _ move. _

Suddenly, there was a tug at his hand, and he realised that Verity was being pulled from his hands. Loki, he realised after a beat, and he watched as his brother launched himself into the fight.

The cold grip of fear grabbed his spine as he saw his little brother put himself right into the jaws of danger. And Thor, ever useless and ever a failure, couldn’t bring himself to move.

The draugr hissed in evil glee, rearing like a snake over the boy and preparing to strike. Thor watched his brother’s path and how he might not make it.

Fear sunk its fangs into him deeper. His brother might not make it.

Within seconds, the draugr crashed down, death falling in a single vicious blow. Loki, with the sword swung back, slashed the blade deep into the side of its face, tearing a bloody gash into its cheek. It wasn’t a killing blow, but it was enough to knock the monster off course and made it strike the ground instead of the boy’s vulnerable body. The draugr screeched, losing its footing and landing heavily on its side.

Loki stuck his other arm out, seidr swirling around it and forced the draugr to stay pinned to the ground.

“Go!” he yelled, his voice harsh and full of a breathless pant. “We need to go!”

Somehow the words shook Thor out of his stupor, and he regained control of his legs. He darted to his brother’s side, gathering the boy up in his arms. Peter groaned in pain, and blinked his eyes open, blearily meeting Thor’s gaze.

He wanted to give the boy some comfort, but they didn’t have time for it. Not with death breathing down their backs.

Quickly, he checked his other companions. Took in Natasha helping Tony and his brother trying to hold the draugr back. He met eyes with Loki, and a silent conversation passed between them as he tightened his grip on the child in his arms.

There was a flash of green light, blinding and intense, and Thor ran.

The group took off down the nearest cave, desperate to put distance between them and the monster. He had a thin hope that they could get away and lose the creature in the maze of tunnels. It wasn’t a solution, but it could be enough to buy them time and maybe a chance to heal.

But just as the hope began to develop in Thor’s head, the draugr screeched, the sound unnatural and bone-chilling. There was a heavy crash and a slick, wet sound as it began moving down the tunnels. It began its hunt again, trying to track them down. He hadn’t expected the damage they did to stop it, but he had expected for it to slow the monster down more.

They were moving as fast as they could, but it was becoming sinkingly clear that it wasn’t nearly fast enough. At this rate, it would be upon them soon.

They would have to fight again. It was the only way to possibly get out alive.

But even as he said it in his head, he recognised how hopeless he sounded. They had just fought it when they were at full strength, and it had risen from the grave, even after a killing blow. They had fought it again, and the fight had only ended because they fled for their lives. If they tried to fight it now…

Thor looked back at his companions and his heart sank into his chest. Tony was heavily leaning against Natasha, his leg bleeding steadily through his broken armour. Natasha seemed a bit less battered, but there was blood dribbling down her face and a nasty gash in her arm from where one of the draugr’s claws got her. When they had time, he was going to have to make sure that it didn’t get infected.

The boy in his arms was by far the worst. Shuttering in pain that he was obviously trying to hide, Peter was fighting to keep a brave face. Thor could see the terror in his eyes, and startling cold realisation of how grim their situation actually was. Most worrying, though, Thor could hear the sickening rattle in Peter’s chest, the heavy wet sound that promised hidden peril in the boy’s lungs.

He needed to heal. They needed to run. They needed to recover, so that maybe they had a fighting chance.

But they were exhausted. He was exhausted. His brother was exhausted. He couldn’t imagine a battle now, not when it was so obvious how hurt they were and how hopeless their chances were.

He looked at Verity in his brother’s hand. It was their only hope at doing damage to the creature, and he didn’t even know whether it would make a difference. Not when the creature could bring itself across the veils so easily.

In front of him, Loki stopped, making their company come to a halt. The tunnel had yawned open into a small cavern. A small cavern with no exit.

“We’re trapped,” Natasha whispered, just as the frigid terror of the realisation sunk into Thor.

They were trapped in a dead-end.

He turned desperately hoping for some kind of miracle exit, but none appeared.

They were trapped.

Behind them the monster hissed, the sound echoing through the tunnel and coming ever closer.

They were trapped and death was coming.

He looked to Loki, hoping to find some guidance. The situation was grim, maybe impossible, but he couldn’t let himself think about it. They were trapped at a dead end with a monster quickly hunting them down to tear their souls apart, but Loki was here.

Loki who had brought himself back from the dead twice already. Loki who held the impossible in his hands and bent it to his will. Loki who didn’t think anything was beyond his capability and looked at the unfeasible as a challenge.

And if Thor trusted anything, he trusted his brother’s ability to think himself out of impossible situations.

And here they were, in a very impossible situation.

Thor looked to his brother, taking in his tense form and the way he paced around the room like a caged cat. He wasn’t even bothering to try to appear calm, anxiety was leaking out of him, and his movements were getting more frantic with it.

Thor looked down to the boy in his arms and saw that Peter was also watching Loki with a grim seriousness. Carefully, he shifted the boy and walked to the wall of the cavern where Tony was already sitting. He placed the child next to his father-figure, making sure to not disturb the boy’s injuries. Peter immediately leaned heavily into Tony, accepting the man’s half hug.

Once the boy was set down, he moved to his frantic brother who was now staring at a wall.

More of the damned runes. Literal writing on the wall.

He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what they said.

Thor came to his brother’s side, forcing himself to give Loki a confident smile. It was fragile and false, but he couldn’t bring himself to visibly show the fear he felt.

Loki wasn’t looking at him, though. His eyes were rapidly scanning the runes, trying to take them all in at once.

“I don’t know,” Loki growled, running an angry hand through his hair. He paced the wall, panic making every one of his muscles tight. He kept looking to the Midgardians, his face growing grimmer each time.

“I don’t know. I don’t know. Why don’t I know?” he berated himself, his panic seeming to bubble to the surface as he got overwhelmed.

“Loki, look at me,” Thor said, knowing his brother was beginning to spiral. Loki kept pacing and murmuring, not willing to take his eyes away from the writing on the wall.

“Loki, look at me,” Thor insisted more firmly. His brother finally tore himself away from the runes and met his gaze. It hurt to see his little brother look so frightened, and there was nothing that Thor wanted to do more than wrap him in a hug and promise him that everything would be okay.

“Explain it to me. Tell me what you’re thinking is.” It was an old method they used to use to help Loki organise his thoughts. There were so many nights spent when they were younger, when Loki’s mind would be spiralling, and his explanation to Thor was the only thing keeping him grounded.

Loki kept his eyes on Thor for a couple beats before nodding in acceptance.

“Okay. Yes, yes.”

The monster screeched again, its hisses and clicks bouncing off the wall of the call. Thor didn’t want to think about how much louder it was becoming, how the creature was persistently rooting out their hiding spot.

Loki’s eyes were wide, and he suddenly looked so much younger. It reminded Thor of the days of Asgard when his brother instinctively sought Thor for protection without the reservations of his pride.

“Explain it to me, Loki,” Thor murmured, his quiet words louder than the creature’s calls and they seemed to bring the prince back to reality.

“Alright. Yes. This cave is imbued with many symbols from the Stygian Cult. The magic they used is old, as old as the foundations of Asgard, and much of its methods are lost. The runes are echoes, though, ghosts of the seidr that they used. What I don’t understand is why runes, though? How would runes be able to call up such a creature…” Loki trailed off as the pieces began to click inside his mind.

“ _ Runes are necessary for rituals because they bind seidr to location. _

_ Spells and hand motions make a glamour to shift your situation. _

_ Potions are particularly good to mend a broken bone. _

_ Rites call something up to make sure you’re not alone.” _

He said the rhyme under his breath and Thor recognised the words from their early magic classes. Loki made it up to help Thor remember the main principles of sorcery.

“I’m focussing on the wrong verse.”

Loki pointed at one of the larger, discoloured runes.

“These are not runes. These are rites.”

“Rites?” Thor repeated the word with his eyebrows raised in question.

Loki nodded frantically, his movements getting less and less coordinated. “Yes, yes. And they are more ancient, more powerful. Scarily powerful. They have to be if they draw up a monster like the draugr.”

Loki suddenly perked, whipping around to look to Peter. His face tightened with concern when he laid eyes on the boy. The humans were sitting on the floor with the boy cradled between them. Carefully, he padded over to the hurt Midgardians and crouched down in front of them.

Natasha met his eyes wearily. Tony gave him a small, tight smile that belied the pain he must be in.

Loki made a purposeful sound, causing Peter to crack his eyes open.

“Hey, Mr. Loki, s’up?” Peter gasped, voice full of a pain that a child should never feel. His own heart hurt as he heard it, and he desperately wished that he could take the pain on to himself.

Something in Loki’s face softened, like ice melting in the spring.

“Hello Spiderling, how are you faring?”

“Pretty okay. I got attacked by a giant monster, and I can’t wait to tell Ned and MJ about it when this is all over.”

The trickster smiled. “I am sure that they will enjoy this story very much. Peter, may you do me a favour and please lend me your eye-pod?”

Peter didn’t even hesitate and immediately struggled to get the small device out of his pocket, despite the pain the motion must have caused him. “Of course, of course.”

He carefully unlocked the pod, and delicately placed it in the god’s hands. “Will it help you defeat the monster, Mr. Loki?”

“I believe so, yes.”

“Good. I’m really craving a cheeseburger right now. I will get you one too, Mr. Loki. I don’t know if ghosts eat, but I still am gonna get you one.”

“Thank you, child, I appreciate it. I will be happy to receive this cheese food.”

The boy gave a small, brittle laugh before curling more into Tony’s chest.

They were running out of time. They were terribly and horribly running out of time.

Loki rose to his feet, standing over the mortals. They looked up to the god who was lit by the firelight and the glow of his seidr. Maybe they didn’t realise it, but there were prayers in their eyes—prayers for relief, for salvation, for intervention.

It reminded Thor of the days centuries ago when humans called them their gods, and they claimed mortals as their own.

Thor still did. It was why he declared himself the “Protector of Midgard” and felt that the Realm belonged in his safekeeping. It was a trademark of the Asgardian people—to claim something as their own and commit themselves to its protection until death.

And even though Aesir blood didn’t run in Loki’s veins, Thor could see the same protective instinct reflected in his gaze. The same steel that made him Asgardian solidified behind his eyes. Somewhere within the tunnels, he had let himself be changed by these mortals and gave a piece of his heart to them.

It was a dangerous, powerful thing to have a claim on the heart of a god.

Thor knew that well, and he watched as Loki came to the same realisation.

His brother fought with himself before he made the inevitable decision. When he put his back to the humans, responsibility weighing heavy on his shoulders, he looked centuries older than he had a minute ago.

Pride welled up in Thor’s chest, and he met his brother’s serious gaze. “Tell me what needs to be done, Loki.”

His brother nodded passively, already caught in the turnings of his own head. “All right yes, rites are different from runes. Runes bind seidr to the location for a specific purpose. In this case, that purpose was to keep the draugr within the cave. Even the best magic cannot last forever though, and the binds on the draugr are beginning to decay.”

Thor tipped his head towards the runes, trying to keep calm as the bellows of the creature grew louder. “So, we can just renew the binds on the runes?”

Loki was already shaking his head before Thor finished the sentence. “Impossible. The language from these runes is lost, and if I were to try to muddle my way through it, the results could be disastrous. Anyways, renewing the runes would only trap us in here with the beast.”

Thor nodded with understanding. “Runes are not an option, but perhaps the rites are?”

Loki hesitated, his hands worrying in anxious movement. His seidr was erratically swirling in the air.

“Maybe,” he said slowly, “but rites are fickle magic. They are powerful, but limited through complicated application. To be honest, I’m surprised that these people ever managed to use them in the first place.”

Thor tilted his head, blatantly ignoring a piercing draugr scream. He forced himself to keep calm, knowing that any crack in his face would only add to Loki’s own fear. “Why is that?”

Loki hummed, running a hand through his hair. “As I said, Rites are fickle. They call things forward, but for a fee. Ironically, though, the price is often something extremely similar or extremely inverse, which makes them impractical for most things that aren’t direct conversion. The exchange rate is…”

The sorcerer froze almost in mid-step, and for a second, it seemed like the world froze around him.

“The exchange rate,” he repeated, “The runes that I thought were useless. I called them taxes, but they were actually outlining this whole scheme.”

Thor felt a little bit of his frustration rise. Finding out how the creature got here was interesting, yes, but it was little help to actually  _ killing  _ the thing.

“Loki.” Thor tried to force the growl out of his voice. It was harder with the screams of the monster echoing through the cave around them. “Please tell me that lends you some insight into killing the draugr and keeping it dead.”

“It’s a sacrifice. We need a sacrifice,” he said, his eyes wide and unseeing as he stared at the wall.

Thor leaned in closer, trying to make sense of the runes on the wall even though he knew he couldn’t read them. “Alright, good. What kind of sacrifice?”

“We need a sacrifice of like.”

“Okay, where do we get a ‘sacrifice of like’? And we need it quickly.”

An unreadable look passed over Loki’s face. He looked old and young at the same time, a man lost in space and time.

Thor was suddenly brought back to the cliff edge that he had imagined before. The one where Loki stood on the edge, and Thor stood just out of reach, just about to pull him back. The scene was darked now, more ominous, with a storm rolling in the distance.

Thor got the distinct feeling that Loki was going to jump.

And it scared him more than anything he thought possible.

“What are you saying, Loki?”

“Rites require payment. A draugr is a living creature that acts as the dead. If we had another, we could use it, but we do not. Magic acknowledges inverse, though. We can sacrifice a dead creature that acts as the living.”

“A dead creature that acts as living…” Thor narrowed his eyes. “What kind of creature is that?”

Loki gave Thor a familiar look. One that spoke of how much affection he held for him. It was as soft and warm as candlelight, and gave Loki’s a rare, tender glint that he only reserved for Thor and Mother. It had been centuries since he had last seen it, and instead of filling him with comfort, it only sunk a rock of worry deep in his stomach.

“A creature like a ghost, Thor.” Loki gave a delicate smile as he said it, and Thor could imagine him taking another step towards the edge of the cliff.

Thor looked at his brother, the horror of what he said sinking in. It chilled him to the bone, ice settling in between the vertebrae of his spine. The air caught in his chest, his muscles wouldn’t obey him no matter how much he tried. His mind just repeated ‘no’ over and over again until it didn’t even sound like a word anymore.

“No,” he finally managed to get out. He felt wetness on his cheek, and he realised he had started crying. “No, Loki, I won’t.”

Loki looked at him desperately, eyes flickering between him and the screaming draugr that was trying to claw its way into the opening. He was breathing hard, nearly panting, and blood was oozing from the cut on his eyebrow. He must have tried to wipe it away, because now it made an almost artistic swipe on Loki’s pale face.

Why would he focus on that? Why focus on that detail when his brother was… his brother wanted him to…

“Thor, you must.” Loki’s voice was accepting, which only made Thor want to scream because why did he sound accepting? Why did the Norns do this? Why did they constantly force him to face his own death head on? Why did they love to hurt him so? Why did they only see his life as something worthy to be sacrificed?

They were supposed to be immortal. But what was even the use of that if he couldn’t keep his brother alive more than a couple days after he had just been given back to him.

“Thor, it’s the only way to save them,” Loki whispered gently, he lifted his hand as if to touch Thor’s cheek, only to put it back down when he realised he couldn’t.

It sent a lance of pain through him, and Thor nearly broke down. He shook his head like a child, desperately wanting to clutch Loki to his chest, to feel his heart beating in his chest, to feel life in him still.

“I am already dead, brother, I was already here on borrowed time and now it’s time for me to go back. I do not have a future anymore.” He looked towards Peter, Tony, and Natasha. “But they do. Your duty is to them, not me.”

Thor sobbed, and the sound was wet and heavy, and it echoed around the cave. “You’re my little brother. My duty is always to  _ you.  _ And I’ve failed. I’ve failed so much. I’m supposed to protect you, not… not…”

He looked at Verity in his hand and couldn’t bring himself to say it.

It was too horrible. He couldn’t say it. He hated everything about it.

Beyond them, the draugr roared, its claws screeching against the rocks. It was hissing furiously, the sound bleeding into Thor’s head and ringing around it.

He looked back at his friends and his heart broke all over again. They were pressed against the rock wall, huddled together. Peter was clutched between Natasha and Tony, shaking in fear with tear streaks down his face. He was pressing his face into Tony’s chest, and the man seemed to be trying to whisper comfort into his ear. Natasha was rubbing Peter’s back with silent tears going down her face as she looked out at the draugr that was bearing down on them.

“It’s okay, brother, it’s okay. I’ll be alright.” Loki whispered.

“I don’t want to lose you. Not again. Please. I do not want to be alone again.” The words were soft, but they echoed around the room.

Loki bent down to his level, his brother looking calmer than Thor had thought possible. How could he be this calm, not when, not when…

His little brother gave him a small smile, one of the rare ones, full of affection. It ripped Thor’s heart in half. “I don’t want you to be alone either, Thor, and you are not.” Loki’s eyes lifted to the other Avengers. “You have your friends. You have a future. You still have life, so please, go and live it. Do not let me and my memory hold you back.”

“But Loki—”Thor tried again, and Loki gave him a look that made him close his jaw shut with a snap.

“Do not ‘but Loki’ me. You know that I am right. This is the only way.”

Thor hesitated, and the howls of the draugr grew louder and more frequent. The rocks seemed to whine, and the smaller ones tumbled down the pile. The creature was getting closer to breaking into a near tunnel.

Soon, it was going to find them, and then they would all be dead.

He glanced at his friends. Natasha and Tony were facing him with matching miserable expressions. Peter couldn’t bring himself to watch and kept shuddering against Tony. They all believed they were going to die.

They were going to die if he didn’t act.

Thor looked back at his brother, his heart breaking in his chest as he realised what he had to do.

His brother was right, horribly and terribly right; it was the only way that they wouldn’t fall prey to the draugr.

He gripped Verity in his hand and stood while his brother remained kneeling.

Loki looked him in the eyes, and it took everything in Thor not to look away in shame. His brother deserved someone to bear witness. He deserved so much more than that, but this is what Thor could do.

Somehow Loki gave him a quirked smile, and it nearly made him shatter. “Make it quick, Thor.”

He raised Verity, hating the way that it gleamed in the fire light. It had never felt so deadly in his hands.

In one last cruel twist of fate, despite not being able to feel any of Loki’s affection or the warmth of his skin, or his pulse of life, Thor felt it when he slid the sword into brother’s chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading!
> 
> Now I know you're going to yell at me, but rest assured that there is still more to this story yet. (over 10k words of more right now because I can't hold myself back). That will be the last chapter though, so I hope you all stick around to see it! 
> 
> Please leave a kudos and comment. Flattery gets you everywhere.


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